Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze
Taking up the challenge of redefining modernity from a Caribbean perspective instead of assuming that the North Atlantic view of modernity is universal, Maria Cristina Fumagalli shows how the Caribbean's contributions to the modern world not only provide a more accurate account of the past but...
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University of Virginia Press
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ftunivessex:oai:repository.essex.ac.uk:1853 2023-05-15T17:31:39+02:00 Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze Fumagalli, MC 2009-10-26 http://repository.essex.ac.uk/1853/ unknown University of Virginia Press Fumagalli, MC (2009) Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze. New World Studies . University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, p. 198. PN0080 Criticism Book PeerReviewed 2009 ftunivessex 2022-09-29T22:39:13Z Taking up the challenge of redefining modernity from a Caribbean perspective instead of assuming that the North Atlantic view of modernity is universal, Maria Cristina Fumagalli shows how the Caribbean's contributions to the modern world not only provide a more accurate account of the past but also have the potential to change the way in which we imagine the future. Fumagalli uses the myth of Medusa's gaze turning people into stone to describe the way North Atlantic modernity freezes its "others" into a state of perpetual backwardness that produces an ethnocentric narrative based on homogenization, vilification, and disempowerment that actively ignores what fails to conform to the story it wants to tell about itself. In analyzing narratives of modernity that originate in the Caribbean, the author explores the region's refusal to succumb to Medusa's spell and highlights its strategies to outstare the Gorgon. Reflecting a diversity of texts, genres, and media, the chapters focus on sixteenth-century engravings and paintings from the Netherlands and Italy, a scientific romance produced at the turn of the twentieth century by the king of the Caribbean island Redonda, contemporary collections of poetry from the anglophone Caribbean, a historical novel by the Guadeloupean writer Maryse Cond , a Latin epic, a Homeric hymn, ancient Egyptian rites, fairy tales, romances from England and Jamaica, a long narrative poem by the Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, and paintings by artists from Europe and the Americas spanning the seventeenth century to the present. Caribbean Perspectives on Modernity offers an original and creative contribution to what it means to be modern. © 2009 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved. Book North Atlantic University of Essex Research Repository Redonda ENVELOPE(-26.000,-26.000,-76.167,-76.167) Walcott ENVELOPE(-63.317,-63.317,-69.083,-69.083) |
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PN0080 Criticism Fumagalli, MC Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
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Taking up the challenge of redefining modernity from a Caribbean perspective instead of assuming that the North Atlantic view of modernity is universal, Maria Cristina Fumagalli shows how the Caribbean's contributions to the modern world not only provide a more accurate account of the past but also have the potential to change the way in which we imagine the future. Fumagalli uses the myth of Medusa's gaze turning people into stone to describe the way North Atlantic modernity freezes its "others" into a state of perpetual backwardness that produces an ethnocentric narrative based on homogenization, vilification, and disempowerment that actively ignores what fails to conform to the story it wants to tell about itself. In analyzing narratives of modernity that originate in the Caribbean, the author explores the region's refusal to succumb to Medusa's spell and highlights its strategies to outstare the Gorgon. Reflecting a diversity of texts, genres, and media, the chapters focus on sixteenth-century engravings and paintings from the Netherlands and Italy, a scientific romance produced at the turn of the twentieth century by the king of the Caribbean island Redonda, contemporary collections of poetry from the anglophone Caribbean, a historical novel by the Guadeloupean writer Maryse Cond , a Latin epic, a Homeric hymn, ancient Egyptian rites, fairy tales, romances from England and Jamaica, a long narrative poem by the Nobel Prize winner Derek Walcott, and paintings by artists from Europe and the Americas spanning the seventeenth century to the present. Caribbean Perspectives on Modernity offers an original and creative contribution to what it means to be modern. © 2009 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved. |
format |
Book |
author |
Fumagalli, MC |
author_facet |
Fumagalli, MC |
author_sort |
Fumagalli, MC |
title |
Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
title_short |
Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
title_full |
Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
title_fullStr |
Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
title_full_unstemmed |
Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze |
title_sort |
caribbean perspectives on modernity: returning medusa's gaze |
publisher |
University of Virginia Press |
publishDate |
2009 |
url |
http://repository.essex.ac.uk/1853/ |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-26.000,-26.000,-76.167,-76.167) ENVELOPE(-63.317,-63.317,-69.083,-69.083) |
geographic |
Redonda Walcott |
geographic_facet |
Redonda Walcott |
genre |
North Atlantic |
genre_facet |
North Atlantic |
op_relation |
Fumagalli, MC (2009) Caribbean perspectives on modernity: Returning Medusa's gaze. New World Studies . University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, p. 198. |
_version_ |
1766129340226994176 |