The Specter and the Speculative

Mae G. Henderson

ISBN 10: 1978834063 / ISBN 13: 9781978834064

Published by Rutgers University Press, US, 2024

About this Item

The Specter and the Speculative: Afterlives and Archives in the African Diaspora engages in a critical conversation about how historical subjects and historical texts within the African Diaspora are re-fashioned, re-animated, and re-articulated, as well as parodied, nostalgized, and defamiliarized, to establish an "afterlife" for African Atlantic identities and narratives. These essays focus on transnational, transdisciplinary, and transhistorical sites of memory and haunting-textual, visual, and embodied performances-in order to examine how these "living" archives circulate and imagine anew the meanings of prior narratives liberated from their original context. Individual essays examine how historical and literary performances-in addition to film, drama, music, dance, and material culture-thus revitalized, transcend and speak across temporal and spatial boundaries not only to reinstate traditional meanings, but also to motivate fresh commentary and critique. Emergent and established scholars representing diverse disciplines and fields of interest specifically engage under explored themes related to afterlives, archives, and haunting.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781978834064

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Specter and the Speculative
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press, US
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1978834063
• ISBN 13: 9781978834064
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 476 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The Specter and the Speculative: Afterlives and Archives in the African Diaspora engages in a critical conversation about how historical subjects and historical texts within the African Diaspora are re-fashioned, re-animated, and re-articulated, as well as parodied, nostalgized, and defamiliarized, to establish an “afterlife” for African Atlantic identities and narratives. These essays focus on transnational, transdisciplinary, and transhistorical sites of memory and haunting—textual, visual, and embodied performances—in order to examine how these “living” archives circulate and imagine anew the meanings of prior narratives liberated from their original context. Individual essays examine how historical and literary performances—in addition to film, drama, music, dance, and material culture—thus revitalized, transcend and speak across temporal and spatial boundaries not only to reinstate traditional meanings, but also to motivate fresh commentary and critique. Emergent and established scholars representing diverse disciplines and fields of interest specifically engage under explored themes related to afterlives, archives, and haunting.

About the Author

Mae G. Henderson is a professor emerita in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is the co-editor of The Josephine Baker Critical Reader: Selected Writings on the Entertainer and Activist (2017) and author of Speaking in Tongues and Dancing Diaspora: Black Women Writing and Performing (2014). 

Jeanne Scheper is an associate professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies at University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Moving Performances: Divas, Iconicity, and Remembering the Modern Stage (Rutgers University Press, 2016).

Gene Melton II is a senior lecturer in the Department of English at North Carolina State University, Raleigh. His work has appeared in Contested Boundaries: New Critical Essays on the Fiction of Toni Morrison (2013).