Routes and roots : navigating Caribbean and Pacific Island literatures / Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth M., 1967-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caribbean literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Caribbean literature.

Pacific Island literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Pacific Island literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 334 p. ) maps ;

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, c2007.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"Elizabeth DeLoughrey invokes the cyclical model of the continual movement and rhythm of the ocean ('tidalectics') to destabilize the national, ethnic, and even regional frameworks that have been the mainstays of literary study. The result is a privileging of alter/native epistemologies whereby island cultures are positioned where they should have been all along-at the forefront of the world historical process of transoceanic migration and landfall. The research, determination, and intellectual dexterity that infuse this nuanced and meticulous reading of Pacific and Caribbean literature invigorate and deepen our interest in and appreciation of island literature." -Vilsoni Hereniko, University of Hawai'i"Elizabeth DeLoughrey brings contemporary hybridity, diaspora, and globalization theory to bear on ideas of indigeneity to show the complexities of 'native' identities and rights and their grounded opposition as 'indigenous regionalism' to free-floating globalized cosmopolitanism. Her models are instructive for all postcolonial readers in an age of transnational migrations." -Paul Sharrad, University of Wollongong, AustraliaRoutes and Roots is the first comparative study of Caribbean and Pacific Island literatures and the first work to bring indigenous and diaspora literary studies together in a sustained dialogue. Taking the "tidalectic" between land and sea as a dynamic starting point, Elizabeth DeLoughrey foregrounds geography and history in her exploration of how island writers inscribe the complex relation between routes and roots. The first section looks at the sea as history in literatures of the Atlantic middle passage and Pacific Island voyaging, theorizing the transoceanic imaginary. The second section turns to the land to examine indigenous epistemologies in nation-building literatures. Both sections are particularly attentive to the ways in which the metaphors of routes and roots are gendered, exploring how masculine travelers are naturalized through their voyages across feminized lands and seas. This methodology of charting transoceanic migration and landfall helps elucidate how theories and people travel, positioning island cultures in the world historical process. In fact, DeLoughrey demonstrates how these tropical island cultures helped constitute the very metropoles that deemed them peripheral to modernity. Fresh in its ideas, original in its approach, Routes and Roots engages broadly with history, anthropology, and feminist, postcolonial, Caribbean, and Pacific literary and cultural studies. It productively traverses diaspora and indigenous studies in a way that will facilitate broader discussion between these often segregated disciplines.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Note on the Text

INTRODUCTION. Tidalectics

PART I. The Sea is History

CHAPTER 1. Middle Passages

CHAPTER 2. Vessels of the Pacific

PART II. Indigenous Landscapes and National Settlements

CHAPTER 3. Dead Reckoning

CHAPTER 4. Adrift and Unmoored

CHAPTER 5. Landfall

Epilogue

Notes

References

Index

About the Author

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 28. Aug 2019)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-324) and index.

ISBN:

9781441671523

1441671528

9780824864187

0824864182

9781435666542

1435666542

OCLC:

257432656