The Masters and the Slaves: Plantation Relations and Mestizaje in American Imaginaries (New Directions in Latino American Cultures)

This collection presents a comparative study of the impact of slavery on the literary and cultural imagination of the Americas, and also on the impact of writing on slavery on the social legacies of slavery's history. The chapters examine the relationship of slavery and master/slave relations to nationalist projects throughout the Americas - the ways in which a history of slavery and its abolition has shaped a nation's identity and race relations within that nation. The scope of the study is unprecedented - the book ties together the entire 'Black Atlantic', including the French and Spanish Caribbean, the US, and Brazil. Through reading texts on slavery and its legacy from these countries, the volume addresses the eroticization of the plantation economy, various formations of the master/slave dialectic as it has emerged in different national contexts, the plantation as metaphor, and the relationship between texts that use cultural vs biological narratives of mestizaje (being interracial). These texts are examined with the goal of locating the origins of the different notions of race and racial orders that have arisen throughout the Americas. Isfahani-Hammond argues that without a critical revisiting of slavery and its various incarnations throughout the Americas, it is impossible to understand and rethink race relations in today's world. Introduction : Who were the masters in the Americas? / Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond The sugar daddy : Gilberto Freyre and the white man's love for Blacks / César Braga-Pinto Writing Brazilian culture / Alexandra Isfahani-Hammond Authority's shadowy double : Thomas Jefferson and the architecture of illegitimacy / Helena Holgersson-Shorter Race, nation, and the symbolics of servitude in Haitian noirisme / Valerie Kaussen Fanon as "metrocolonial" flaneur in the Caribbean post-plantation/Algerian colonial city / Nalini Natarajan From the tropics : cultural subjectivity and politics in Gilberto Freyre / Jossianna Arroyo Hybridity and mestizaje : sincretism or subversive complicity? Subalternity from the perspective of the coloniality of power / Ramón Grosfoguel The rhythm of Macumba : Lívio Abramo's engagement with Afro-Brazilian culture / Luiza Franco Moreira Blood, memory, and nation : massacre and mourning in Edwidge Danticat's The farming of bones / Shreerekha Subramanian. Front Matter....Pages i-x Introduction: Who Were the Masters in the Americas?....Pages 1-17 The Sugar Daddy: Gilberto Freyre and the White Man’s Love for Blacks....Pages 19-33 Writing Brazilian Culture....Pages 35-49 Authority’s Shadowy Double: Thomas Jefferson and the Architecture of Illegitimacy....Pages 51-66 Race, Nation, and the Symbolics of Servitude in Haitian Noirisme....Pages 67-87 Fanon as “Metrocolonial” Flaneur in the Caribbean Post-Plantation/Algerian Colonial City....Pages 89-102 From the Tropics: Cultural Subjectivity and Politics in Gilberto Freyre....Pages 103-114 Hybridity and Mestizaje: Sincretism or Subversive Complicity? Subalternity from the Perspective of the Coloniality of Power....Pages 115-129 The Rhythm of Macumba: Lívio Abramo’s Engagement with Afro-Brazilian Culture....Pages 131-148 Blood, Memory, and Nation: Massacre and Mourning in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones....Pages 149-161

The Masters and the Slaves theorizes the interface of plantation relations with nationalist projects throughout the Americas. In readings that cover a wide range of genres--from essays and scientific writing to poetry, memoirs and the visual arts--this work investigates the post-slavery discourses of Brazil, the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Martinique. Indebted to Orlando Patterson's Slavery and Social Death (1982) and Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic (1993), these essays fill a void in studies of plantation power relations for their comparative, interdisciplinary approach and their investment in reading slavery through the gaze of contemporary theory, with particularly strong ties to psychoanalytic and gender studies interrogations of desire and performativity.

The Masters and the Slaves theorizes the interface of plantation relations with nationalist projects throughout the Americas. In readings that cover a wide range of genres—from essays and scientific writing to poetry, memoirs and the visual arts—this work investigates the post-slavery discourses of Brazil, the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti and Martinique. Indebted to Orlando Patterson's Slavery and Social Death (1982) and Paul Gilroy's The Black Atlantic (1993), these essays fill a void in studies of plantation power relations for their comparative, interdisciplinary approach and their investment in reading slavery through the gaze of contemporary theory, with particularly strong ties to psychoanalytic and gender studies interrogations of desire and performativity.