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- Convenor:
-
Camillia Cowling
(University of Edinburgh)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea
(University of Kent)
- Discussant:
-
Natalia Sobrevilla Perea
(University of Kent)
- Location:
- ATB G113
- Start time:
- 11 April, 2013 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Interdisciplinary perspectives on major nineteenth-century Latin American themes: independence, slavery and abolition.
Long Abstract:
We propose four papers which focus on some of the enduring themes, processes and legacies of the Latin American nineteenth century: independence, slavery and abolition. Drawing on both literary and historical studies, we aim at a fruitful interdisciplinary discussion. In analysing women's contribution to independence processes and the legacy of those contributions, in considering women slaves' agency in combating slavery, or in examining the gendered construction of antislavery discourses and movements, all the papers necessarily incorporate perspectives on both race and gender together. The papers also focus, in different ways, on historical and literary actors who have not traditionally been the subjects of mainstream narratives of independence, slavery and abolition; at the same time, they all grapple with whether, and how, these concerns can challenge or reformulate those established narratives. We will discuss a range of geographical areas and time periods, from the continental independence movements of the early nineteenth century and historical memory of them in twentieth and twenty-first-century Latin America, to the "second slavery" and eventual emancipation and abolition movements experienced by Brazil and Cuba.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Despite huge success in the US and Europe, little attention has been given to the reception of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in Brazil. This paper will discuss the differing ways in which Brazilians responded to the novel, focusing on two anti-slavery texts from the 1850s that reveal the influence of Uncle Tom.
Paper long abstract:
In the years immediately following its publication, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel enjoyed huge popularity and influence, and received an arguably even warmer welcome in Europe. Uncle Tom's reception in Brazil, however, appears to have been decidedly more muted, perhaps not surprisingly given the social conditions and prevailing attitudes towards slavery in 1850s Brazil, still 35 years from abolition.
No doubt as a result of this limited early engagement with the novel, very little scholarly attention has been paid to the influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin on anti-slavery discourse in Brazil. In this paper I will outline some of the differing ways in which Brazilians responded both to the figure of Harriet Beecher Stowe and to the characters and events of her famous novel. In particular, I will discuss two of the most interesting pieces of fiction to overtly address the subject of slavery in Brazil during the 1850s, both of which, I suggest, reveal the clear influence of Uncle Tom.
It is certainly of interest, and significance, to note that both of these little-known texts were written by women. What makes a reading of them particularly interesting, though, is that whilst both authors appear to have taken inspiration from the acclaim and influence won by Beecher Stowe and her book, their own social and racial backgrounds fundamentally shaped their re-workings of Tom, resulting in two markedly different texts.
Paper short abstract:
Gender and abolitionist rhetoric in Cuba, Brazil and the Atlantic World.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines abolitionist rhetoric and its links to the actions of enslaved women during gradual emancipation in the last two slaveholding territories of the Americas: Brazil and Cuba. A set of gendered rhetorical strategies, developed in earlier Atlantic abolitionist campaigns, was adopted and adapted by abolitionists in Brazil, Cuba and Spain (which in this period retained its colonial hold over Cuba). Organizations and individuals aimed at emotive responses from elite audiences and readerships, generating sympathy for slaves as fellow human beings. The most effective means of indicating the universality of humanity was by evoking the rights of motherhood, depicted as essential to womanhood independently of race or legal status. Meanwhile, as each country adopted "free womb" legislation in the 1870s, enslaved women positioned themselves at the forefront of legal struggles for freedom. The rhetoric of their legal and official petitions, "translated" through the pens of scribes and representatives, both drew on and helped to reformulate broader abolitionist gendered positionings.
Paper short abstract:
A presentation of a new multimedia resource and associated outreach activities.
Paper long abstract:
A presentation of a new multimedia community-contributed community-driven online resource and associated outreach activities, funded by the AHRC at University of Nottingham in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh. The project aims to stimulate debate and research on women and Independence in Latin America by building on public interest in women's involvement in the Independence Wars,triggered by the Bicentenaries, and women's unprecedented presence in Latin America politics today.