Elusive Origins

by Miller, Paul B.

• ISBN13: 9780813929798
• ISBN10: 0813929792
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

Although the questions of modernity and postmodernity are debatedas frequently in the Caribbean as in other cultural zones, theEnlightenment--generally considered the origin of European modernity--is rarelydiscussed as such in the Caribbean context. Paul B. Miller constellates modernCaribbean writers of varying national and linguistic traditions whose common threadis their representation of the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution in theCaribbean. In a comparative reading of such writers as Alejo Carpentier (Cuba), C.L. R. James (Trinidad), Marie Chauvet (Haiti), Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe), ReinaldoArenas (Cuba), and Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá (Puerto Rico), Miller shows how theseauthors deploy their historical imagination in order to assess and reevaluate theelusive and often conflicted origins of their own modernity.Millerdocuments the conceptual and ideological shift from an earlier generation of writersto a more recent one whose narrative strategies bear a strong resemblance topostmodern cultural practices, including the use of parody in targeting theirdiscursive predecessors, the questioning of Enlightenment assumptions, and asuspicion regarding the dialectical unfolding of history as their precursorsunderstood it. By positing the Cuban Revolution as a dividing line between theearlier generation and their postmodern successors Miller confers a Caribbeanspecificity upon the commonplace notion of postmodernity.The dualadvantage of Elusive Origins's thematicspecificity coupled with its inclusiveness allows a reflection on canonical writersin conjunction with lesser-known figures. Furthermore, the inclusion of Francophoneand Anglophone writers in addition to those from the Hispanic Caribbean opens up thevolume geographically, linguistically, and nationally, expanding its contribution toa nonessentialist understanding of the Caribbean in a Latin American, Atlantic, andglobal context.New World StudiesAmerican LiteraturesInitiative