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Article Dans Une Revue Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines Année : 2021

"What Are the Pleasures of a Slave? The Politics of Affect in Antebellum US Slave Narratives"

Résumé

Antebellum slave narratives are tales of suffering that are not, however, devoid of joy. While the sufferings of the enslaved have been the subject of much critical attention, this essay explores their counterpoint: pleasures and joys which, through their narration, acquire a political quality. For the enslaved, no pleasure is innocent, all pleasures are political, even biopolitical, being part and parcel of the slaveholders’ disciplinary apparatuses, in which pleasure, for enslaved men and women, can be both complicit in the slave system and the sign of a capability of enjoyment of their own. However, against the biopolitical regulations of slaves’ pleasures, slave narratives can produce a political counter-discourse through the narration of alternate pleasures and “scanty joys,” which acquire an infrapolitical and subjectifying value.

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Dates et versions

hal-03878826 , version 1 (30-11-2022)

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Édouard Marsoin. "What Are the Pleasures of a Slave? The Politics of Affect in Antebellum US Slave Narratives". Revue Française d'Etudes Américaines, 2021, 167 (2), pp.14-29. ⟨10.3917/rfea.167.0014⟩. ⟨hal-03878826⟩
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