Overview

‘Shuttles in the Rocking Loom’: Mapping the Black Diaspora in African American and Caribbean Fiction explores the symbolic geographies found within modern black fiction and identifies a significant set of relations between these geographies and communal affiliations, identity politics, and understandings of a diasporic past. Employing a pliant sense of the term ‘mapping’, it offers analysis of diverse sites, landscapes, journeys, and orientations that address diasporan historical experience and often expose oppressive spatial orders or revise colonial representations. A comparative approach encompasses Anglo- and Francophone novels emergent from North America, the Caribbean, and Europe and spanning the twentieth century. The study draws on postcolonial theories of the transnational, cross-cultural formations initiated by racial slavery, while shaping its own geographical focus. In particular, spatialised aspects within the work of Édouard Glissant and Paul Gilroy provide departure points for new investigation into the prominence of space and place in a powerful black diaspora imaginary. Not only are resistant counter geographies charted but attention to narrative poetics also reveals distinctive mappings of interrelation between the temporal and spatial in diasporic fiction. Chapters examine the meanings of the US North and South; Caribbean definitions of both the plantation and anti-plantation locations; engagements with the Atlantic Middle Passage and other oceanic trajectories; and plotting of stratifications, transformative interactions, and the search for belonging in the diasporic city. Converging geographical visions in African American and Caribbean fiction are found to articulate dislocation and traversal but also connection and emplacement.

Full Product Details

Author:   Jennifer Terry
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
Volume:   3
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 23.90cm
Weight:   0.544kg
ISBN:  

9781846319549

ISBN 10:   1846319544
Pages:   228
Publication Date:   11 October 2013
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Publisher acknowledgements Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The Legacies of Slavery and the US North and South David Bradley, Octavia Butler, W. E. B. DuBois, Ralph Ellison, Pauline E. Hopkins, Toni Morrison, Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker 2 Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior Maryse Condé, Édouard Glissant, Wilson Harris, Jamaica Kincaid, Earl Lovelace, Paule Marshall, Jacques Roumain 3 Sea Changes: Middle Passages and Voyages ‘Home’ Maryse Condé, Charles Johnson, George Lamming, Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Caryl Phillips, Simone Schwarz-Bart, John Edgar Wideman 4 City Space: Claims, Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling Dionne Brand, Patrick Chamoiseau, C. L. R. James, Nella Larsen, Andrea Levy, Claude McKay, John Edgar Wideman Conclusion Bibliography Index

Reviews

The revision of European projections of a paradisal landscape is also examined in 'Shuttles in the Rocking Loom' (8). Here, as the title explains, Jennifer Terry includes African American as well as Caribbean fiction in her analysis of the black diaspora and although many of the same authors are discussed, the themes differ from those in Pathologies of Paradise, with four chapters covering The Legacies of Slavery and the US North and South , Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior , Sea Changes: Middle Passages and Voyages 'Home and City Space: Claims, Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling . Shuttles in the rocking loom of history is a quotation from Robert Hayden's poem Middle Passage , evoking the displacements engendered by slavery in the Americas. Paul Gilroy and Edouard Glissant influence Terry's investigation of black diasporic history and identities from North America, the Caribbean and Europe, which aims to discover how relationships to the diasporic past are shaped by current concerns. Chapter 1 explores the poles of north and south in the USA in the form of upward migrations to the US north and downward returns to an originary or mythic south. Landscape in the Caribbean is always a significant area of critical discussion and so the second chapter investigates novels from the early 20th century which uncover colonial and slave pasts relating to unresolved post-slavery land rights. The fictional engagements with environment and exploitation include a section on plantation and plot , the plot being the land which belongs to those who work it and which is regarded as a site of empowerment. Ocean crossings in memory of the slave ships of the Middle Passage in the Atlantic include travels back to Africa which, Terry argues, sometimes prove to be problematic for diasporans. Authors under consideration here are Caryl Phillips, Simone Schwartz-Bart and Maryse Conde, whose I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem engages with memory back , but to the Caribbean from New England. Terry demonstrates how these works mostly affirm a position of diasporic resilience (173). Consideration of city space in the fourth chapter includes a section on migration and military service in the world wars, and readings of Claude McKay's Banjo and Andrea Levy's Small Island (the latter is also discussed in Pathologies of Paradise). Terry's study is effectively organized, clearly signposting each theme throughout. Although the two books reviewed here sometimes cover the same authors, their differing themes should ensure that both are of interest to scholars of Caribbean literature. Terry's study is effectively organized, clearly signposting each theme throughout...of interest to scholars of Caribbean literature. Jennifer Terry's multinational and theoretically informed study of African Atlanticfiction ranges from W. E. B. Du Bois through Maryse Conde to CarylPhillips and from C. L. R. James through Octavia Butler to Dionne Brand. As shecontends, the etymology of diaspora suggests both routes and roots; her astutestudy explores these writers in terms of imagined and actual movements as wellas the national, local, and regional narratives and histories that inform them.She is insistent on the importance of place over placelessness in diasporic fiction,while being wary of the pitfalls of nationalism in the narrower kinds ofAfrican Atlantic criticism. Thus, she articulates a useful critique of HoustonBaker's remark that the exclusive focus on black u.s. experience can reinforcea constraining nationalism or even exceptionalism (p. 15) that stymies crossculturalcriticism. Her study provides exactly the opposite kind of endeavor;it is open, multilingual, and attuned to the specificity of place while alwaysmaking connections to other writings in the diaspora. For instance, in a sustainedand incisive reading of Earl Lovelace's Salt, Terry demonstrates how the fixation on departure and estrangement from the local illustrates Glissant'snotion of 'transferred space,' a mapping informed by imperialist values thatconfer importance and indeed civilization on elsewhere (p. 91). She shows howLovelace's local Caribbean space is marginalized by the workings of Anglocentrichegemony.The book's structure in four chapters- Legacies of Slavery in the u.s. Northand South, Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior, SeaChanges: Middle Passages and Voyages, and Home and City Space: Claims,Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling -works well, the first two dividing u.s. andCaribbean authors and the latter two melding them. All four have merits, butoccasionally there is a feeling that too many authors (around thirty overall)are discussed. Terry manages to say new things about even the most critiquednovels. For instance on Toni Morrison's Jazz (1991), she for once looks notat the Harlem Renaissance roots, but the 1990s moment when the novel waswritten, showing how it engages in fruitful and critical dialogue with FrancisFukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man (1991), refuting his notion thathistory is 'over' and insisting that the struggles that have shaped the modernworld have not and will not disappear (p. 54). Later in the study Terry usesJamaica Kincaid's A Small Place (1988) to show the problematics of the apoliticalin relation to contemporary realities on a Caribbean island. After describing2015087 [NWIG-2015-89.3-4] 040-BR-Rice-proof-01 [date 1506231414 : version 1506021045] page 108108 book reviewsNew West Indian Guide 89 (2015) 1-140how Kincaid outlines the visual attraction of the island, she shows how shesimultaneously conveys a kind of alienation from landscape, using this to suggesta kind of objectification ... Kincaid's blunt perspective thus brings about areappraisal of the received aesthetics for the Caribbean ... demythologizing andforcing a harder look (p. 81). Terry's fictional mappings use this as her steppingoff point for the way other Caribbean writers interpret the landscape.Probably the strongest chapter is the one on the Middle Passage, in whichshe interrogates Edouard Glissant, Toni Morrison, and Paule Marshall witha wide range of secondary sources and historical contexts, showing how the Atlantic depths are hence haunted by the presence of the drowned, their markingof a history of suffering and of spiritualised trajectories and connectionsproving suggestive for fictional voyages that remind and retrace (p. 123). WhatTerry shows throughout this book is the way that African diasporic resilience,surviving the trauma, ultimately reveals enmeshed histories that often aptlyexplicate the journeys made. The importance of remaking histories to many ofthese narratives is something to which she constantly returns. Later, in lookingat recrossings of the Atlantic to Europe, she complicates the stories, though ultimatelyshe shows how novels by writers such as Andrea Levy and Phillips signalthe narrative of diasporan migration to be as much about securing dwellingas about movement or travel (p. 198). Jennifer Terry's multinational and theoretically informed study... is open, multilingual, and attuned to the specificity of place while always making connections to other writings in the diaspora. What Terry shows throughout this book is the way that African diasporic resilience, surviving the trauma, ultimately reveals enmeshed histories that often aptly explicate the journeys made. The importance of remaking histories to many of these narratives is something to which she constantly returns.

The revision of European projections of a paradisal landscape is also examined in 'Shuttles in the Rocking Loom' (8). Here, as the title explains, Jennifer Terry includes African American as well as Caribbean fiction in her analysis of the black diaspora and although many of the same authors are discussed, the themes differ from those in Pathologies of Paradise, with four chapters covering The Legacies of Slavery and the US North and South , Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior , Sea Changes: Middle Passages and Voyages 'Home and City Space: Claims, Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling . Shuttles in the rocking loom of history is a quotation from Robert Hayden's poem Middle Passage , evoking the displacements engendered by slavery in the Americas. Paul Gilroy and Edouard Glissant influence Terry's investigation of black diasporic history and identities from North America, the Caribbean and Europe, which aims to discover how relationships to the diasporic past are shaped by current concerns. Chapter 1 explores the poles of north and south in the USA in the form of upward migrations to the US north and downward returns to an originary or mythic south. Landscape in the Caribbean is always a significant area of critical discussion and so the second chapter investigates novels from the early 20th century which uncover colonial and slave pasts relating to unresolved post-slavery land rights. The fictional engagements with environment and exploitation include a section on plantation and plot , the plot being the land which belongs to those who work it and which is regarded as a site of empowerment. Ocean crossings in memory of the slave ships of the Middle Passage in the Atlantic include travels back to Africa which, Terry argues, sometimes prove to be problematic for diasporans. Authors under consideration here are Caryl Phillips, Simone Schwartz-Bart and Maryse Conde, whose I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem engages with memory back , but to the Caribbean from New England. Terry demonstrates how these works mostly affirm a position of diasporic resilience (173). Consideration of city space in the fourth chapter includes a section on migration and military service in the world wars, and readings of Claude McKay's Banjo and Andrea Levy's Small Island (the latter is also discussed in Pathologies of Paradise). Terry's study is effectively organized, clearly signposting each theme throughout. Although the two books reviewed here sometimes cover the same authors, their differing themes should ensure that both are of interest to scholars of Caribbean literature. -- Melanie A. Murray Journal of Postcolonial Writing

""The revision of European projections of a paradisal landscape"" is also examined in 'Shuttles in the Rocking Loom' (8). Here, as the title explains, Jennifer Terry includes African American as well as Caribbean fiction in her analysis of the black diaspora and although many of the same authors are discussed, the themes differ from those in Pathologies of Paradise, with four chapters covering ""The Legacies of Slavery and the US North and South"", ""Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior"", ""Sea Changes: Middle Passages and Voyages 'Home"" and ""City Space: Claims, Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling"". ""Shuttles in the rocking loom of history"" is a quotation from Robert Hayden's poem ""Middle Passage"", evoking the displacements engendered by slavery in the Americas. Paul Gilroy and Edouard Glissant influence Terry's investigation of black diasporic history and identities from North America, the Caribbean and Europe, which aims to discover how relationships to the diasporic past are shaped by current concerns. Chapter 1 explores the poles of north and south in the USA in the form of ""upward"" migrations to the US north and ""downward"" returns to an ""originary"" or mythic south. Landscape in the Caribbean is always a significant area of critical discussion and so the second chapter investigates novels from the early 20th century which uncover colonial and slave pasts relating to unresolved post-slavery land rights. The fictional engagements with environment and exploitation include a section on plantation and ""plot"", the plot being the land which belongs to those who work it and which is regarded as a site of empowerment. Ocean crossings in memory of the slave ships of the Middle Passage in the Atlantic include travels ""back"" to Africa which, Terry argues, sometimes prove to be problematic for diasporans. Authors under consideration here are Caryl Phillips, Simone Schwartz-Bart and Maryse Conde, whose I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem engages with memory ""back"", but to the Caribbean from New England. Terry demonstrates how these works mostly affirm ""a position of diasporic resilience"" (173). Consideration of city space in the fourth chapter includes a section on migration and military service in the world wars, and readings of Claude McKay's Banjo and Andrea Levy's Small Island (the latter is also discussed in Pathologies of Paradise). Terry's study is effectively organized, clearly signposting each theme throughout. Although the two books reviewed here sometimes cover the same authors, their differing themes should ensure that both are of interest to scholars of Caribbean literature. Terry's study is effectively organized, clearly signposting each theme throughout...of interest to scholars of Caribbean literature. Jennifer Terry's multinational and theoretically informed study of African Atlanticfiction ranges from W. E. B. Du Bois through Maryse Conde to CarylPhillips and from C. L. R. James through Octavia Butler to Dionne Brand. As shecontends, the etymology of diaspora suggests both routes and roots; her astutestudy explores these writers in terms of imagined and actual movements as wellas the national, local, and regional narratives and histories that inform them.She is insistent on the importance of place over placelessness in diasporic fiction,while being wary of the pitfalls of nationalism in the narrower kinds ofAfrican Atlantic criticism. Thus, she articulates a useful critique of HoustonBaker's remark that ""the exclusive focus on black u.s. experience can reinforcea constraining nationalism or even exceptionalism"" (p. 15) that stymies crossculturalcriticism. Her study provides exactly the opposite kind of endeavor;it is open, multilingual, and attuned to the specificity of place while alwaysmaking connections to other writings in the diaspora. For instance, in a sustainedand incisive reading of Earl Lovelace's Salt, Terry demonstrates how the""fixation on departure and estrangement from the local illustrates Glissant'snotion of 'transferred space,' a mapping informed by imperialist values thatconfer importance and indeed civilization on elsewhere"" (p. 91). She shows howLovelace's local Caribbean space is marginalized by the workings of Anglocentrichegemony.The book's structure in four chapters-""Legacies of Slavery in the u.s. Northand South,"" ""Landscapes of the Caribbean Plantation and Interior,"" ""SeaChanges: Middle Passages and Voyages,"" and ""Home and City Space: Claims,Cosmopolitanisms and Dwelling""-works well, the first two dividing u.s. andCaribbean authors and the latter two melding them. All four have merits, butoccasionally there is a feeling that too many authors (around thirty overall)are discussed. Terry manages to say new things about even the most critiquednovels. For instance on Toni Morrison's Jazz (1991), she for once looks notat the Harlem Renaissance roots, but the 1990s moment when the novel waswritten, showing how it engages in fruitful and critical dialogue with FrancisFukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man (1991), refuting his ""notion thathistory is 'over' and insisting that the struggles that have shaped the modernworld have not and will not disappear"" (p. 54). Later in the study Terry usesJamaica Kincaid's A Small Place (1988) to show the problematics of the apoliticalin relation to contemporary realities on a Caribbean island. After describing2015087 [NWIG-2015-89.3-4] 040-BR-Rice-proof-01 [date 1506231414 : version 1506021045] page 108108 book reviewsNew West Indian Guide 89 (2015) 1-140how Kincaid outlines the visual attraction of the island, she shows how ""shesimultaneously conveys a kind of alienation from landscape, using this to suggesta kind of objectification ... Kincaid's blunt perspective thus brings about areappraisal of the received aesthetics for the Caribbean ... demythologizing andforcing a harder look"" (p. 81). Terry's fictional mappings use this as her steppingoff point for the way other Caribbean writers interpret the landscape.Probably the strongest chapter is the one on the Middle Passage, in whichshe interrogates Edouard Glissant, Toni Morrison, and Paule Marshall witha wide range of secondary sources and historical contexts, showing how the""Atlantic depths are hence haunted by the presence of the drowned, their markingof a history of suffering and of spiritualised trajectories and connectionsproving suggestive for fictional voyages that remind and retrace"" (p. 123). WhatTerry shows throughout this book is the way that African diasporic resilience,surviving the trauma, ultimately reveals enmeshed histories that often aptlyexplicate the journeys made. The importance of remaking histories to many ofthese narratives is something to which she constantly returns. Later, in lookingat recrossings of the Atlantic to Europe, she complicates the stories, though ultimatelyshe shows how novels by writers such as Andrea Levy and Phillips ""signalthe narrative of diasporan migration to be as much about securing dwellingas about movement or travel"" (p. 198). Jennifer Terry's multinational and theoretically informed study... is open, multilingual, and attuned to the specificity of place while always making connections to other writings in the diaspora. What Terry shows throughout this book is the way that African diasporic resilience, surviving the trauma, ultimately reveals enmeshed histories that often aptly explicate the journeys made. The importance of remaking histories to many of these narratives is something to which she constantly returns.

Author Information

Dr Jennifer Terry is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in English at Durham University, UK with particular interests in literature and culture of the black diaspora. Her research is situated at the intersections of American hemispheric, US and postcolonial studies. Previous publications have focused on the work of Toni Morrison and other African American writers. Her monograph 'Shuttles in the Rocking Loom': Mapping the Black Diaspora in African American and Caribbean Fiction was published by Liverpool University Press in 2013. Dr Terry is Secretary of the British Association for American Studies, organised the UK Higher Education Academy event ‘Teaching African American Literature and Culture’ in 2014, and is developing new work on visions of futurity in recent fiction and visual art by black diasporans.

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