Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America

Description

In this provocative and original exploration of racial subjugation during slavery and its aftermath, Saidiya Hartman illumines the forms of terror and resistance that shaped black identity. Scenes of Subjection examines the forms of domination that usually go undetected; in particular, the encroachments of power that take place through notions of humanity, enjoyment, protection, rights, and consent. By looking at slave narratives, plantation diaries, popular theater, slave performance, freedmen's primers, and legal cases, Hartman investigates a wide variety of "scenes" ranging from the auction block and minstrel show to the staging of the self-possessed and rights-bearing individual of freedom. While attentive to the performance of power—the terrible spectacles of slaveholders' dominion and the innocent amusements designed to abase and pacify the enslaved—and the entanglements of pleasure and terror in these displays of mastery, Hartman also examines the possibilities for resistance, redress and transformation embodied in black performance and everyday practice. This important study contends that despite the legal abolition of slavery, emergent notions of individual will and responsibility revealed the tragic continuities between slavery and freedom. Bold and persuasively argued, Scenes of Subjection will engage readers in a broad range of historical, literary, and cultural studies.

Get the book

Amazon.com

Search the book

eBay.com

Search the book

Other editions

• 

  Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America

  • 2022-10-11
  • 491 pages
  • Ebook
  • W. W. Norton & Company
• 

  Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-making in Nineteenth-century America

  • 1997
  • 281 pages
  • Paperback
  • Oxford University Press on Demand

Similar books

• 

  The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People

  By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen

  By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval oflicer away on duty ...

• 

  The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume I

  By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen

  ... had married the widowed daughter of a Washington tavern keeper. By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.

• 

  Rice University: One Hundred Years in Pictures

  By Karen Hess Rogers, Lee Pecht, Alan Harris Bath

  ... Bill, Kennedy, Jacqueline, Kennedy, John F., Kidd, Albert and Elizabeth, Kieran Timberlake (architects), Kilpatrick, John, Kirkland, William, Kissinger, ...

• 

  Cengage Advantage Series: The Enduring Vision

  By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen

  ... 195–196, 361; abolishing of, 257 Ticonderoga fort, 157, 169 Tilden, Samuel J., 524 Timberlake, Peggy O'Neale, 301 Timbuktu, Mali, Sankore Mosque in, ...

• 

  The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People, Volume 1

  By Paul S. Boyer, Clifford E. Clark, Karen Halttunen

  By her own account, Peggy O'Neale Timberlake was “frivolous, wayward, [and] passionate.” While still married to a naval officer away on duty, ...

• 

  The Cherokee Struggle to Maintain Identity in the 17th and 18th Centuries

  By Jr., William R. Reynolds

  Timberlake, p. 8 (9–10). 2. Timberlake, p. 36 (70). 3. Hoig, p. 45; Kelly, p. 22; Timberlake, p. 37 (72–73). 4. Alderman, p. 6; Timberlake, p.

• 

  Prehistoric Copper Mining in Europe, 5500-500 BC

  By William O'Brien

  Timberlake, S. 2002. 'Ancient prospection for metals and modern prospection for ancient mines: the evidence for Bronze Age mining within the British Isles', ...

• 

  The Sixties in the News: How an Era Unfolded in American Newspapers, 1959-1973

  By William J. Ryczek

  hadn't known Timberlake until the two moved in together. Kathy had worked at a series of jobs, including electronics assembler and a dancer in a bar, ...

• 

  A Borderland Confederate

  By William Lyne Wilson

  Terrill, Philip, killed Thompson, William S. Timberlake, George, wounded. Timberlake, Harry. Timberlake, J. H., wounded. Timberlake, J. L., wounded.

• 

  Golf in Columbus at Wyandot Country Club: A Lost Donald Ross Classic

  By William R. Case

  As the caretaker of the clubhouse, Timberlake was furnished living quarters on the second floor. Around 8:00 p.m., he descended into the basement for the ...