In this Book

summary
The first monograph to investigate the poetics and politics of haunting in African diaspora literature, Ghosts of the African Diaspora: Re-Visioning History, Memory, and Identity examines literary works by five contemporary writers—Fred D’Aguiar, Gloria Naylor, Paule Marshall, Michelle Cliff, and Toni Morrison. Joanne Chassot argues that reading these texts through the lens of the ghost does cultural, theoretical, and political work crucial to the writers’ engagement with issues of identity, memory, and history. Drawing on memory and trauma studies, postcolonial studies, and queer theory, this truly interdisciplinary volume makes an important contribution to the fast-growing field of spectrality studies.

Table of Contents

Cover

Series Page

pp. iii

Title Page

pp. v

Copyright

pp. vi

Epigraph

pp. vii

Contents

pp. x-xi

Acknowledgments

pp. xi-xii

Introduction: Tracing the Ghost

pp. 1-33

1 "Voyage through death / to life upon these shores": Representing the Middle Passage

pp. 34-74

2 Dusky Sallys: Re-Visioning the Silences of History

pp. 75-108

3 "You best remember them!": Repossessing the Spirit of Diaspora

pp. 109-151

4 "A ghost-life": Queering the Limits of Identity

pp. 152-194

Afterword: Learning to Live with Ghosts

pp. 195-200

Notes

pp. 201-217

Works Cited

pp. 219-237

Credits

pp. 238

Index

pp. 239-248
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