The ‘Air of Liberty’

Narratives of the South Atlantic Past
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-90-420-2396-3
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 96, 224 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 535 g

Reihe: Cross/Cultures

The Caribbean imagination as framed within a Dutch historical setting has deep Portuguese-African roots. The Seven Provinces were the first European power, in the first half of the 17th century, to challenge the Iberian countries directly for a share in the slave trade. This book analyzes the philosophy underlying this transoceanic link, when contacts with Africa started to be developed.
The ambiguous morality of the ‘air of liberty’ governing the Afro-Portuguese past had its impact on the creole cultures (white, black, Jewish) of the Dutch territories of Suriname and Curaçao. Although this influence is gradually disappearing, it is astonishing to witness the engagement with which writers and visual artists have interpreted this heritage in their different ways. Recent narratives from Angola and Brazil offer an appropriate starting-point for an examination of strategies of self-representation and national consolidation in works by authors from the Dutch Caribbean. In order to reveal this complex historical pattern, the (formerly) Dutch-related port communities are conceived of as cultural agents whose ‘lettered cities’ (Ángel Rama) have engaged in critical dialogue with the heritage of the South Atlantic trade in human lives.
Artists and writers discussed include (colonial period): Caspar Barlaeus, David Nassy, Frans Post, and John Gabriel Stedman; (modern period): Frank Martinus Arion, Cola Debrot, Gabriel García Márquez, Albert Helman, Francisco Herrera Luque, Boeli van Leeuwen, Tip Marugg, Alberto Mussa, Pepetela, Julio Perrenal, and Mário Pinto de Andrade.

“This is a notable achievement, for it both draws attention to the region and challenges critics and historians to engage in cross-regional and ‘trans-disciplinary’ research and analysis” — Saúl Sosnowski.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
The Dream of Order
1. Mauritsstad–Recife in Seventeenth-Century Brazil
2. Amsterdam and the South Atlantic
The Crisis of Enlightenment
3. The Jewish-Portuguese Nation in the Colony of Suriname
4. The Maroon and the Creole as Narrative Tropes
The Search for Alternatives
5. Manuel Piar and the Struggle for Independence in Latin America
6. Popular Rhythms and Political Voices in Curaçao
7. New Landscapes, Creole Belonging
Toward a Cultural History of the South Atlantic
8. The South Atlantic Revisited
Concluding Remarks
Works Cited
Index

Über Autor(innen)

INEKE PHAF–RHEINBERGER is an independent scholar residing in Berlin, and an affiliated researcher at the Latin American Studies Center (LASC), University of Maryland at College Park. Her major focus is on Caribbean studies in relationship to Africa and Latin America. Her many publications include Creole Presence in the Caribbean and Latin America (editor, 1996); A History of the Literature of the Caribbean, vol. 2 (subeditor for the Dutch-speaking Caribbean, 2001); Memorias de la fragmentación: Tierra de libertad y paisajes del Caribe (editor, 2005); and AfricAmericas: Itineraries, Dialogues, and Sounds (2008).