#Slavery and films about slavery have been trending on Twitter in recent years, confirming that its legacies continue to shape modern society. In the Francophone Caribbean slavery was abolished in the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1848. In 1946 the islands voted to become French départements. Haiti, on the other hand, became the first Black republic of the Western hemisphere in 1804 after gaining independence from France.  This module examines how visual cultures might propose new perspectives on slavery, colonialism and immigration in the Francophone and Creolophone Caribbean islands and their diasporic communities in France. We will explore a range of textual, visual and digital media, from artists and thinkers from the late eighteenth century to the contemporary period, whose work engages with issues such as race, identity, gender and visuality. We will question how vision is linked to practices of power and inequality in the Francophone Caribbean whilst also addressing the importance of oral traditions and the Creole language in performing resistance and cultural memory.

• Analyse and compare a range of visual materials and media and relate these historically to the complexities of French Caribbean society and culture.
• Demonstrate an understanding of key concepts in francophone postcolonial theory and apply these approaches critically to the works discussed.
• Evaluate competing and complementary critical perspectives on vision and visuality, knowledge and power.
• Assess minority languages and cultural traditions in the Francophone Caribbean from a global and intercultural perspective. 

The course will be taught through weekly lectures, interactive workshops and seminars totalling 27 hours. Students will be required to prepare readings and participate actively in the workshops and seminars. Preparatory reading, visual materials and film clips will be available to download from Learning Central. Film screenings will also be scheduled where appropriate. Students will engage in digital research tasks on topics related to the course and weekly student-led visual/digital presentations will provide an opportunity for further feedback from both the tutor and your peers. There will be sessions on essay writing and in-depth revision classes at the end of the semester in preparation for the exam. Feedback will be provided to students throughout the course.

• Improved skills in reading and applying various theoretical approaches to visual cultures
• Students will be able to express, discuss and debate complex ideas and abstractions in a confident and coherent manner
• Organise ideas and formulate convincing arguments in their essay-writing
• Development of techniques in digital research and digital/visual presentation.
• Critical thinking and evaluation skills

Essay - 2,000 words - 30% - Assessed essay chosen from range of questions relating to materials from the course which has a formative as well as a summative role. Preparation for more wide-ranging answer required in summative assessment.

Written exam - Spring exam period - 70%

The opportunity for reassessment in this module

In the event of failing the module, the student will be able to resit the failed element or elements in the summer resit period

This module is divided into four main thematic blocks:

• Slavery and Revolution
• Oral traditions, Language and Memory
• Artistic Vision and Travel
• Diasporic Transgressions

In the first block we will explore the history of the French transatlantic slave trade and the Haitian Revolution. The material examined will cover a range of media and genres, including visual portraits of Haitian Revolutionary leader, Toussaint Louverture and a series of portraits by artist Agostino Brunias. In the second section we will focus on works that evoke the memories of slavery through oral traditions and the Creole language, including Aimé Césaire’s poem Le Cahier du retour au pays natal (1956) and Martinican director Euzhan Palcy’s film Rue cases nègres (1983). The third section will look at the work of contemporary artists/travellers who have been imaging the Francophone Caribbean over the past decade. In the final block we will examine the Francophone Caribbean in France and how diasporic identities are constructed and negotiated in the métropole through close analysis of French director Claire Denis’ J’ai pas sommeil (1994).

Set Texts and Films:

A series of paintings by Agostino Brunias (on Learning Central)

A series of portraits of Toussaint L’Ouverture (on Learning Central)

Aimé Césaire Le Cahier du retour au pays natal (1956) Bloodaxe Edition ISBN : 1852241845 - it is recommended that you buy a copy of this poem

Euzhan Palcy (dir.) Rue cases nègres (1983)

Claire Denis (dir.) J’ai pas sommeil (1994)

Selected photographic works by Leah Gordon: http://www.leahgordon.co.uk/

Aching, Gerard. Masking and Power: Carnival and Popular Culture in the Caribbean. (Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2002) Classmark: GT4223.A2

Benítez-Rojo, Antonio. The Repeating Island: the Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective. Trans. James Maraniss. (Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press, 1992)

Beugnet, Martine. Claire Denis (Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press, 2004) Classmark: PN1998.A3.D3.B3

Dobie, Madeleine. ‘Invisible Exodus: The Cultural Effacement of Antillean Migration’ (Diaspora 13.2 (2004): 149-183)

Dobie, Madeleine. Trading Places: Colonization and Slavery in Eighteenth-Century French Culture (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2010) Classmark: PQ265.D6

Césaire, Aimé. Toussaint Louverture : la Révolution française et le problème colonial (Paris : Présence Africaine, 1981) Classmark : F1923.C3

César, Sylvie. "La Rue Cases-Nègres" du roman au film: étude comparative (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994)

Clark, Vèvè. “Haiti’s Tragic Overture: (Mis) Representations of the Haitian Revolution in World Drama (1797-1975).” In Representing the French Revolution: literature, historiography and art. Edited by James A. W. Heffernan, 237-60. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth University Press,1992.

Condé, Maryse. La Parole des femmes : essai sur des romancières des Antilles de langue française (Paris : L'Harmattan,1993) Classmark : PQ3944.C6

Dayan, Colin. Haiti, History, and the Gods (Berkeley; London : University of California Press,1995)

Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004) Available as ebook

Fanon, Frantz. Peau noire, masques blancs (Paris : Éditions du Seuil, 1995) Classmark : HT1521.F2. Also available as ebook

Federini, Fabienne. La France d'Outre-mer : critique d'un volonté française (Paris : Harmattan, 1996) Classmark: JV1811.F3

Forsdick, Charles and David Murphy. Francophone postcolonial studies: a critical introduction (London: Arnold, 2003) Classmark: PQ3897.F7

Fuss, Diana. ‘Interior Colonies: Frantz Fanon and the Politics of Identification.’ Diacritics 24.2/3 (1994): 19-24.

Gautier, Arlette. Les Soeurs de solitude : la condition féminine dans l’esclavage aux Antilles du XVII au XIX siècle. (Paris: Editions Caribéennes, 1985.)

Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. (London; New York : Verso, 1993.) Classmark: E185.615.G4

Gordon, Leah. Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti (London: Soul Jazz Records, 2010) Classmark: GT4226.A4.J2.K2

Haehnel, Birgit and Melanie Ulz (eds), Slavery in Art and Literature. Approaches to Trauma, Memory and Visuality (Berlin : Frank & Timme, 2009)

Hall, Colin Michael and Hazel Tucker, Tourism and Postcolonialism: Contested Discourses, Identities, and Representations (London; New York : Routledge, 2004). Classmark: G155.A1.T6

James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (London : Penguin Books, 2001) Classmark: F1923.J2

King, Rosamond S. Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination (University Press of Florida, 2014). Classmark: PR9205.05.K4

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London : Routledge, 1998) Classmark: PN56.C63.L6

Marker, Cynthia. ‘Sleepless in Paris: J’ai pas sommeil (Denis, 1993).’ French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Ed. Phil Powrie. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.) 137-147.

McAlister, Elizabeth A. Rara! : Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and its Diaspora (Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2002). Classmark: NX600.P66.M2

Miller, Christopher L. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008) Available as ebook

Minh-Ha, Trinh T.  When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, Gender, and Cultural Politics. (New York: Routledge, 1991) Classmark: PN1995.T7

Nesbitt, Nick (ed.) Toussaint L'Ouverture: the Haitian revolution (London : Verso, 2008) Classmark: F1923.T6

Petty, Shiela. Contact Zones: Memory, Origin, and Discourses in Black Diasporic Cinema (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008). Classmark: PN1995.9.N4.P3 Particularly chapter 2 on Rue Cases-Nègres and chapter 7 on Fanon.

Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London;NY: Routledge, 1992)

Rosello, Mireille. Declining the Stereotype: Ethnicity and Representation in French Cultures. (Hanover, N.H. London: University Press of New England, 1998) 

Sheller, Mimi. Citizenship from Below: Erotic Agency and Caribbean Freedom (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012) E-book

Sheller, Mimi. Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. (London; NY: Routledge, 2003) Classmark: HF3312.S4

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001) Classmark: PN4784.P5.S6

Spaas, Lieve. The Francophone film: a struggle for identity (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000) Classmark: PN1993.5.F7.S7

Thompson, Krista. An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean Landscape (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2006). Classmark: G155.C27.T4

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press,1995) Classmark: D16.9.T7

Ulysse, Gina Athena. Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post-Quake Chronicle (Wesleyan University Press, 2015).Classmark: HV600.H2.U5

Young, Lola. Fear of the Dark: ‘Race’, Gender and Sexuality in the Cinema. London: Routledge, 1996.

Websites:

An extremely useful website: http://slavery.uga.edu/index.html

The purpose of this website is to assemble resources related to slavery in the Francophone world from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

An Island Luminous is a site designed to help learners find out more about Haiti’s history and includes extracts from key authors and historians: http://dloc.com/exhibits/islandluminous