Territories of the Soul : Queered Belonging in the Black Diaspora

Nadia Ellis Attends To African Diasporic Belonging As It Comes Into Being Through Black Expressive Culture. Living In The Diaspora, Ellis Asserts, Means Existing Between Claims To Land And Imaginative Flights Unmoored From The Earth--that Is, To Live Within The Territories Of The Soul. Drawing On The Work Of José Esteban Muñoz, Ellis Connects Queerness's Utopian Potential With Diasporic Aesthetics. Occupying The Territory Of The Soul, Being Neither Here Nor There, Creates In Diasporic Subjects Feelings Of Loss, Desire, And A Sensation Of A Pull From Elsewhere. Ellis Locates These Phenomena In The Works Of C. L. R. James, The Testy Encounter Between George Lamming And James Baldwin At The 1956 Congress Of Negro Artists And Writers In Paris, The Elusiveness Of The Queer Diasporic Subject In Andrew Salkey's Novel Escape To An Autumn Pavement, And The Trope Of Spirit Possession In Nathaniel Mackey's Writing And Burning Spear's Reggae. Ellis's Use Of Queer And Affect Theory Shows How Geographies Claim Diasporic Subjects In Ways That Nationalist Or Masculinist Tropes Can Never Fully Capture. Diaspora, Ellis Concludes, Is Best Understood As A Mode Of Feeling And Belonging, One Fundamentally Shaped By The Experience Of Loss--page [4] Of Cover. Introduction : The Queer Elsewhere Of Black Diaspora -- The Attachments Of C.l.r. James -- The Fraternal Agonies Of Baldwin And Lamming -- Andrew Salkey And The Queer Diasporic -- Burning Spear And Nathaniel Mackey At Large -- Epilogue : Dancehall's Urban Possession. Nadia Ellis. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 111-232) And Index. Contents 6 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction - The Queer Elsewhere of Black Diaspora 14 One - The Attachments of C. L. R. James 31 Two - The Fraternal Agonies of Baldwin and Lamming 75 Three - Andrew Salkey and the Queer Diasporic 108 Four - Burning Spear and Nathaniel Mackey at Large 160 Epilogue - Dancehall’s Urban Possessions 190 Notes 206 Bibliography 234 Index 246 Nadia Ellis theorizes the experience of belonging to the African diaspora as living within the space between the land and the soul. She uses a utopian concept of queerness and analyses of African American and Caribbean writers, musicians, and artists to show how diaspora is a mode of feeling and belonging.