Fathers, daughters, and slaves : women writers and French colonial slavery / Doris Y. Kadish.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kadish, Doris Y.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--Women authors--History and criticism.

French literature.

French literature--Women authors.

Women and literature--France--History--19th century.

Women and literature.

France.

History.

Slavery in literature.

Fathers in literature.

Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1766-1817.

Staël.

Dard, Charlotte-Adelaïde.

Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline, 1786-1859.

Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline.

Duras, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de, 1777-1828.

Duras, Claire de Durfort.

Doin, Sophie, 1800-1846.

Doin, Sophie.

Physical Description:

ix, 186 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Liverpool : Liverpool University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves brings to life the unique contribution by French women during the early nineteenth century, a key period in the history of colonialism and slavery. The book enriches our understanding of French and Atlantic history in the revolutionary and postrevolutionary years when Haiti was menaced with the re-establishment of slavery and when class, race, and gender identities were being renegotiated. It offers in-depth readings of works by Germaine de Staël, Claire de Duras, and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. In addition to these now canonical French authors, it calls attention to the lives and works of two lesser-known but important figures-Charlotte Dard and Sophie Doin. Approaching these five women through the prism of paternal authority, Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves explores the empathy that daughters show toward blacks as well as their resistance against the oppression exercised by male colonists and other authority figures. The works by these French women antislavery writers bear significant similarities, which the book explores, to twentieth- and twenty-first-century Francophone texts. These women's contributions allow us to move beyond the traditional boundaries of exclusively male accounts by missionaries, explorers, functionaries, and military or political figures. They remind us of the imperative for ever-renewed gender research in the colonial archive and the need to expand conceptions of French women's writing in the nineteenth century as a small minority corpus. Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves contributes to an understanding of colonial fiction, Caribbean writing, romanticism, and feminism. It undercuts neat distinctions between the cultures of France and its colonies and between nineteenth- and twentieth-century Francophone writing. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Patriarchy and Abolition: Germaine de Staël 31

2 Fathers and Colonization: Charlotte Dard 53

3 Daughters and Paternalism: Marceline Desbordes-Valmore 80

4 Voices of Daughters and Slaves: Claire de Duras 103

5 Uniting Black and White Families: Sophie Doin 127.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781846318467

1846318467

OCLC:

815367738