Curiosity seekers, time travelers, and avant-garde artists: U.S. American literary and artistic responses to the occupation of Haiti (1915--1934)

摘要: U.S. American literary and creative artists perform the work of developing a discursive response to two critical moments in Haitian history: Revolution (1791-1804) Marine Occupation (1915 1934), inspiring imaginations imaginary concepts. Revolutionary images Toussaint Louverture proliferated beyond boundaries Haiti illuminating complicity colonial powers maintaining notions particularized racial discourse. Frank J. Webb, free black Philadelphian, engages scathing critique Thomas Carlyle’s sage prose “On Negro Question” (1849) through fictional depiction painted image Webb’s novel The Garies their Friends (1857). Travel writing ethnographies provide platforms for new forms artistic production involving Vodou. Following James Weldon Johnson’s policy (1920), others members Harlem Renaissance counter narrative that reengages particular readers with Haiti’s problematic visual lens experience. pseudo journalism William Seabrook's Magic Island (1929) serves as poto mitan (center point) around which other works produced after appear. Katherine Dunham, Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Deren followed Seabrook’s wake. Literature, performances, film, well complementary ethnographic records each follow from Dunham (Dances Haiti, 1983), Hurston (Tell My Horse, 1938), (Divine Horsemen, 1953). these significant cultural producers may better represent experience fieldwork following Occupation. Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), Dunham’s exposure dances across world stage, Deren’s experimental films capture reciprocal effect process on continued presentation contemporary audiences. Literature directly related appears later Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo (1972), Arthur Flowers’s Another Good Loving Blues (1993), Edwidge Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994), Nalo Hopkinson’s Salt Roads (2005). These productive literatures art actively engage creating transnational ideal diaspora we understand it today. All dance delicately