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2003 | |
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English | |
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History, Literature, Cultural Studies |
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Editors: William Boelhower - Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA Dorothea Fischer-Hornung - Heidelberg University, Germany Richard Follett - University of Sussex, UK Neil Safier - University of British columbia, Canada
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Please send all contributions as email attachments (doc, docx or rtf format) to Atlantic-Studies@mesea.org. Articles should, in general, be under 10,000 words, written in English, double spaced (including all notes and references), and follow the Chicago Humanities style. An abstract of approximately 300 words should accompany the article. In addition a list of up to 6 key words, suitable for indexing and abstracting services, should be supplied. A brief biographical sketch of the author should be provided on a separate sheet. The author’s email and full postal address must be supplied. Submissions will be subjected to blind review before acceptance. |
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Atlantic Studies
 The quarterly Atlantic Studies provides an international forum for research and debate on historical, cultural and literary issues within the Atlantic world. Published on behalf of MESEA (The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas) , the journal challenges nationalist historiographies and literatures by focusing on the Atlantic as an area of cultural change and exchange, translation and interference, communication and passages. Atlantic Studies welcomes submissions in the areas of cultural studies, history, geography, critical theory, and literature.
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October 2004, Vol. 1, No. 2
The October 2004 issue of Atlantic Studies features scholarship by Marcus Wood, Emma Christopher, Andrew Taylor, Trevor Burnard, Jonathan Highfield, Adrienne Scullion.
Celebrating the Middle Passage: Atlantic slavery, Barbie and the birth of the Sable Venus
This paper concerns the fictionalisation of the phenomenon of the ‘middle passage’ within Atlantic cultures. Scholarly construction of the middle passage has tended to be grounded in the analysis of abuse, guilt and suffering. The ground rules for this set of cultural emphases were laid down in England in the late eighteenth century, and then seeped through the Americas. Yet much may be gained by moving away from this inheritance, by looking at the rhetoric that, in different ways, celebrates the processes of the middle passage. The majority of celebratory rhetoric was written by slavery apologists for a pro-slavery readership. Isaac Teale’s strange poem ‘The Voyage of the Sable Venus,’ written in 1765 and published in 1793, together with an accompanying engraving by the celebrated artist Thomas Stothard, is used as a test case to think through some ironies and paradoxes thrown up by art which injects sexualised humour into the contemplation of the middle passage. The tendency to ironise, and even joke about, the processes of sexuality and suffering embodied within the experience of the middle passage, is then taken out from eighteenth-century England and into contemporary Brazil. The discussion moves on to meditate upon the meanings of the sea-Goddess Iemanjá within the cult religions of Salvador Bahia. The piece ends by speculating on what it means when the icon of American subject womanhood, the Barbie doll, is taken over to Brazil and transformed into the African sea-Venus, and protector of slaves, Iemanjá.
Editorial
Celebrating the Middle Passage: Atlantic slavery, Barbie and the birth of the Sable Venus
This paper concerns the fictionalisation of the phenomenon of the "middle passage" within Atlantic cultures. Scholarly construction of the middle passage has tended to be grounded in the analysis of abuse, guilt and suffering. The ground rules for this set of cultural emphases were laid down in England in the late eighteenth century, and then seeped through the Americas. Yet much may be gained by moving away from this inheritance, by looking at the rhetoric that, in different ways, celebrates the processes of the middle passage. The majority of celebratory rhetoric was written by slavery apologists for a pro-slavery readership. Isaac Teale’s strange poem "The Voyage of the Sable Venus," written in 1765 and published in 1793, together with an accompanying engraving by the celebrated artist Thomas Stothard, is used as a test case to think through some ironies and paradoxes thrown up by art which injects sexualised humour into the contemplation of the middle passage. The tendency to ironise, and even joke about, the processes of sexuality and suffering embodied within the experience of the middle passage, is then taken out from eighteenth-century England and into contemporary Brazil. The discussion moves on to meditate upon the meanings of the sea-Goddess Iemanjá within the cult religions of Salvador Bahia. The piece ends by speculating on what it means when the icon of American subject womanhood, the Barbie doll, is taken over to Brazil and transformed into the African sea-Venus, and protector of slaves, Iemanjá.
Another Head of the Hydra? Slave trade sailors and militancy on the African coast
This paper looks at the activities of the sailors on board British and North American slave ships on the coast of West Africa. It argues that the West African coast was a central part of the Atlantic arena, where seamen deserted from their ships, resisted the authority of their captain, and occasionally took more extreme action of taking their ships and turning pirate. They did this not in isolation from local African workers, but rather in connection with them
"Mixture is a secret of the English island": Transatlantic Emerson and the location of the intellectual
This essay examines Emerson’s position as a public intellectual engaging with concepts of national identity in the transatlantic framework of his travel narrative English Traits (1856). Rather than reading Emerson simply (and reductively) as the seductive avatar of an American cultural nationalism, I propose instead a pattern of assertion and retreat that the comparative perspective of English Traits allows. I examine the ways in which the idea of the “intellectual” has been defined in the work of William James and Edward Said, specifically the relationship between the life of the mind and institutional forces, and suggest that Said’s model of “contrapuntal” reading can be applied usefully to Emerson’s aesthetic and ideological practices. The essay addresses the tension between intellectual transcendence and intellectual location in terms of Emerson’s own engagement with social institutions (such as the lyceum network) and his uneasy relationship within ideological ones associated with American exceptionalism. Both the formal structuring of English Traits and its cultural analysis reveal an Emerson unable to decide between the relative merits of England and the United States, and the book closes with an implied rejection of national categories altogether.
Passangers Only: The extent and significance of absenteeism in eighteenth century Jamaica
Contemporaries and modern historians see absenteeism as a defining feature of British colonisation in the West Indies. Moreover, they have imbued absenteeism with a host of negative meanings, suggesting that it was the principal reason why West Indian colonies did not develop into settler societies as in British North America. Looking at Jamaica, this article examines the extent of absenteeism in the mid-eighteenth century and concludes that it was not as considerable as it has been presented in the literature. In addition, it assesses the long-term significance of the phenomenon and questions whether absenteeism was especially socially and politically deleterious.
The Dreaming Quipucamayoq: Myth and landscape in Wilson Harris’ The Dark Jester
In Wilson Harris’ novel The Dark Jester conquistador history in the Americas and Andean and Buddhist myths are linked in a type of quipu, a pre-colonial Incan narrative constructed from knotted strings. Exploring these ideas, Harris’ narrator uncovers an architectural passage into alternate histories through the motif of the Lost City. The dark jest of the title is a carnivalesque transformative moment at the point of death, and the narrator, looking through both Atahualpa’s and Tupac Amaru’s eyes as they are executed, sees the genealogy of Indian resistance which continues in the struggles in Chiapas and the Andes. Harris’ novel suggests an alternate history of the cultural exchange between Europe and the Americas, built not upon nationalist myths or determinist global colonialism, but resting rather on the receptive ideas of Incan and Buddhist religion, and argues that the affects of that interaction are still in process and are far more complicated than neocolonial narratives suggest.
Byrne and the Bogie Man: Experiencing American popular culture in Scotland
This essay argues that American popular culture, economically so dominant and socially so prevalent, remains open to re-use and reversal when exposed to the unique and active discourses of the ‘target’ culture. With reference to a range of texts and representations – including comic books, television and stage drama – this essay considers how modern Scottish culture has used images and motifs of American popular culture, transforming them wholly, and rendering them uniquely and identifiably ‘Scottish.’ The essay focuses on the example of Scottish playwright and fine artist John Byrne, with key exemplification being draw from his drama cycle The Slab Boys Trilogy – The Slab Boys (1978), Cuttin’ a Rug (1979) and Still Life (1982) – and two television series, Tutti Frutti (BBC, 1987) and Your Cheatin’ Heart (BBC, 1990). The essay discusses the impact and utilisation of American popular culture in Scottish popular culture in general – and on Byrne’s work in particular – in relation to two important sets of representation: the western; and, the gangster film and narratives of the hard-boiled detective. These are initially discussed in relation to two Scottish cartoon series: Bud Neill’s 1950’s cartoon strip Lobey Doser, and the 1980’s cartoon serial The Bogie Man. Referring to these two comic strips, as a segue to analysing the work of a dramatist and painter, underlines both the general mutability of popular culture and the specific impact of American popular culture in both the visual and linguistic culture of Scotland. From these examples, the essay concludes that popular culture will negotiate with the various cultural and artistic systems in its worldview. Therefore, within Scottish culture, such processes of hybridisation transform the raw material of, for example, the Hollywood movie into a distinctive and locally specific expression of popular culture
Other Issues
September 2011, Vol. 8, No. 3
March 2011, Volume 8, Number 1
June 2011, Volume 8, Number 2
Special issue, Itineraries of Atlantic science - new questions, new approaches, new directions, Vol. 7, No. 4
September 2010, Vol. 7, No. 3
June 2010, Vol. 7, No. 2
March 2010, Volume 7, Number 1
December 2009, Volume 6, Number 3
August 2009, Volume 6, Number 2
April 2009, Volume 6, Number 1
December 2008, Vol. 5, No. 3
August 2008, Vol. 5, No. 2
October 2007, Vol. 4, No. 2
April 2007
, Vol. 4, No. 1
October 2006 , Vol. 3, No. 2
April 2006, Vol. 3, No. 1
October 2005, Vol. 2, No. 2
April 2005, Vol. 2, No. 1
April 2005, Vol. 2, No. 1
April 2004, Vol. 1, No. 1