The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan NarrativesIn the past, scholars have looked at narratives of the African diaspora only to discover how these memoirs, poems, and fictions related to the West. The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan Narratives explores relationships among African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-British narratives of slavery and of New World and British oppression and what African influences brought to these diasporic expressions. Using an interdisciplinary method that combines history, literary theory, cultural studies, anthropology, folklore, and philosophy, the book examines the work of Pan-African trickster icons, such as Leuk (Rabbit), Golo (Monkey), Bouki (Hyena), Mbe (Tortoise), and Anancy (Spider), on the resistance strategies of early black writers who were exposing the evils of slavery, racism, sexism, economic exploitation, and other forms of oppression. Works discussed in this book include Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787), Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1795), Elizabeth Hart Thwaites's “History of Methodism” (1804), Anne Hart Gilbert's "History of Methodism" (1804), and Mary Prince's The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, Related By Herself (1831). Analyzing these writings in the context of the black Atlantic struggle for freedom, The Trickster Comes West relocates the beginnings of Pan-Africanism and suggests the strong influence of its theories of communal resistance, racial solidarity, and economic development on pioneering black narratives. |
Contents
| 3 | |
African and Puritan Dimensions of Phillis Wheatleys Poems and Letters | 21 |
PanAfricanism in Quobna Ottobah Cugoanos Liberation Discourse | 69 |
PanAfricanism in Olaudah Equianos Interesting Narrative | 105 |
Africanism and Methodism in the Works of Elizabeth Hart Thwaites and Anne Hart Gilbert | 144 |
African and Caribbean Patterns in Mary Princes Resistance | 178 |
Other editions - View all
The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan ... Babacar M'Baye No preview available - 2009 |
The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan ... Babacar M'Baye No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
abolitionist African American African American literature African cultures African folklore African folktales African oral African slaves Akan Anancy Anansi Antigua Antiguan slaves argues Arochukwu Ashanti Atlantic slave trade Bermuda Black Atlantic black diaspora black women black writers Bouki British Caribbean Carretta century Christian Coast colonial Cugoano describes early black edited eighteenth eighteenth-century England enslaved Africans Europeans Fanti freedom Ghana Gilbert griots Hare Hart Sisters History homeland human Hyena identity Igbo influence John Kumba land Leuk London master Middle Passage Monkey narrator Negro Obeah Olaudah Equiano oppression oral tradition Ottobah owners Pan-African Pan-Africanist Phillis Wheatley planter poem Prince Prince’s Puritan racism representation resistance says Senegambian shows similar slave culture slavery social society spiritual story storyteller strategies suggests survival tactics tale Thoughts and Sentiments Thwaites Thwaites's tion traditional African trickster trickster figures University Press West Indian West Indies Western Wheatley's Wolof woman World worldviews writes York