1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910255089503321

Titolo

Madness in Black Women’s Diasporic Fictions [[electronic resource] ] : Aesthetics of Resistance / / edited by Caroline A. Brown, Johanna X. K. Garvey

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2017

ISBN

3-319-58127-9

Edizione

[1st ed. 2017.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (XI, 326 p.)

Collana

Gender and Cultural Studies in Africa and the Diaspora

Disciplina

306.08996073

Soggetti

African Americans

Literature   

Sociology

United States—Study and teaching

Literature, Modern—20th century

Literature, Modern—21st century

African American Culture

Postcolonial/World Literature

Gender Studies

American Culture

Contemporary Literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references at the end of each chapters and index.

Sommario/riassunto

This collection chronicles the strategic uses of madness in works by black women fiction writers from Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe, and the United States. Moving from an over-reliance on the “madwoman” as a romanticized figure constructed in opposition to the status quo, contributors to this volume examine how black women authors use madness, trauma, mental illness, and psychopathology as a refraction of cultural contradictions, psychosocial fissures, and political tensions of the larger social systems in which their diverse literary



works are set through a cultural studies approach. The volume is constructed in three sections: Revisiting the Archive, Reinscribing Its Texts: Slavery and Madness as Historical Contestation, The Contradictions of Witnessing in Conflict Zones: Trauma and Testimony, and Novel Form, Mythic Space: Syncretic Rituals as Healing Balm. The novels under review re-envision the initial trauma of slavery and imperialism, both acknowledging the impact of these events on diasporic populations and expanding the discourse beyond that framework. Through madness and healing as sites of psychic return, these novels become contemporary parables of cultural resistance.