Caribbean Critique

Antillean Critical Theory from Toussaint to Glissant

Nick Nesbitt

Caribbean Critique
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Nick Nesbitt

Distributed for Liverpool University Press

288 pages | 6 x 9
Liverpool University Press - Contemporary French & Francophone Cultures
Cloth $99.95 ISBN: 9781846318665 Published July 2013 For sale in North America only

Caribbean Critique seeks to define and analyze the distinctive contribution of francophone Caribbean thinkers to perimetric Critical Theory. The book argues that their singular project has been to forge a brand of critique that, while borrowing from North Atlantic predecessors such as Rousseau, Hegel, Marx, and Sartre, was from the start indelibly marked by the Middle Passage, slavery, and colonialism. Chapters and sections address figures such as Toussaint Louverture, Baron de Vastey, Victor Schoelcher, Aimé Césaire, René Ménil, Frantz Fanon, Maryse Condé, and Edouard Glissant, while an extensive theoretical introduction defines the essential parameters of 'Caribbean Critique.'

Celia Britton, University College London
“This is a very important and exciting book. Extending his previous work on the philosophical bases of the Haitian Revolution to the whole of the French Caribbean, Nesbitt has produced the first ever account of the region’s writing from a consistently philosophical, as distinct from literary or historical, standpoint.”
fishpond.com
“The first ever account of the Caribbean’s writing from a philosophical standpoint. Essential reading for researchers and graduate students of contemporary French philosophy, especially the currently flourishing revival of neo-Marxist thought around Badiou, Ranciere, and Zizek. For specialists in postcolonial theory, the book offers a challenging reconceptualization of their field, while for specialists in French Caribbean writing, it provides a new perspective on already well-known authors.” 
Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction: The Caribbean Critical Imperative

I. Tropical Equality: The Politics of Principle

.    1  Foundations of Caribbean Critique: From Jacobinism to 
Black Jacobinism

.    2  Victor Schoelcher, Tocqueville, and the Abolition of Slavery

.    3  Aimé Césaire and the Logic of Decolonization

.    4  ‘Stepping Outside the Magic Circle’: The Critical Thought 
of Maryse Condé

.    5  Édouard Glissant: From the Destitution of the Political to Antillean Ultra-leftism


II. Critique of Caribbean Violence

.    6  Jacobinism, Black Jacobinism, and the Foundations of 
Political Violence

.    7  The Baron de Vastey and the Contradictions of Scribal
 Critique

.    8  Revolutionary Inhumanism: Fanon’s On Violence

.    9  Aristide and the Politics of Democratization


III. Critique of Caribbean Relation

.    10  Édouard Glissant: From the Poétique de la relation to the Transcendental Analytic of Relation

.    11  Césaire and Sartre: Totalization, Relation, Responsibility

.    12  Militant Universality: Absolutely Postcolonial

.    Conclusion: Aimé Césaire: The Incandescent I, Destroyer of Worlds

Appendix: Letter of Jean-François, Belair, and Biassou/
Toussaint, July 1792

Notes

BibliographyIndex

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Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory

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