Description
Book SynopsisShows how a shared consciousness, or third sight, rooted in pre-colonial African cultures and disseminated in a rich oral tradition, has served diasporic communities by creating structures of feeling linking those of African descent across centuries and continents.
Trade Review“Clear Word and Third Sight casts new light upon the argument of alternative consciousness by using relatively unknown writers and poets, particularly from the English and French West Indies, along with better known diasporic and American writers. It will be of significant interest to scholars concerned with discourses of difference rooted in notions of being and understanding that are not Western or Euro-centered.”—Percy C. Hintzen, author of
West Indian in the West: Self-Representations in an Immigrant Community“Clear Word and Third Sight itself offers clarity and vision in a new and insightful reading of African diaspora literatures. Catherine A. John offers a necessary revisiting of negritude, a confidence in her examination of coloniality and gendered identity, and an embrace of magic and spirit and poetry.”—Carole Boyce Davies, Florida International University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: Alternate Consciousness in the Diaspora 1
1 Paris in 1956: Negritude and Cultural Discourse 21
2 Colonial Legacies, Gender Identity, and Black Female Writing in the Diaspora 43
3 Negritude and Negativity: Alienation and "Voice" in Eastern Caribbean Literature 74
4 Diaspora Philosophy, French Caribbean Literature, and Simone Schwarz-Bart's Pluie et vent sur Telumee Miracle 114
5 The Spoken Word and Spirit Consciousness: Audre Lorde and Paule Marshall's Diasporic Voice 158
Afterword 203
Notes 211
Bibliography 227
Index 237
