Olaudah Equiano's Enchantments

IF 0.3 3区 文学 0 LITERATURE, AMERICAN
B. Williams
{"title":"Olaudah Equiano's Enchantments","authors":"B. Williams","doi":"10.1353/eal.2023.a903778","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Of late, much scholarship on Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative has focused either on the meaning of Equiano's Christianity in postcolonial terms or the debate over Equiano's actual place of birth. To be sure, these discussions have been illuminating in many ways, but this essay seeks to change direction in Equiana by calling attention to the enchantments that infuse Equiano's life story—the magical and miraculous events that structure the narrative of his experience and the corresponding concepts of enchanted space and time by which he interprets them. Presenting supernatural experiences as evidence of his sensibility to the enchanted substrata of the world, Equiano, I argue, attempts a counter-cartographic project of locating Africa and Africans at the center of the atlas of world history over and against the dominant British assumption that Africa had no place in the history of human civilization. To accomplish this remapping, Equiano deploys enchanted scenes rhetorically to depict Africa as central to geohistorical time. Concomitantly, in his presentation of miraculous encounters, Equiano stresses a competing hermeneutics of enchantment that sanctions his new depiction and, along with it, his calls for abolition and justice. In focusing on Equiano's sensibility to extraempirical dimensions of geography and history, I hope to provide scholars of secular and religious orientations, as well as those divided over Equiano's empirical birthplace, some ground for collaboration and new discussion.","PeriodicalId":44043,"journal":{"name":"EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE","volume":"58 1","pages":"337 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/eal.2023.a903778","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE, AMERICAN","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract:Of late, much scholarship on Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative has focused either on the meaning of Equiano's Christianity in postcolonial terms or the debate over Equiano's actual place of birth. To be sure, these discussions have been illuminating in many ways, but this essay seeks to change direction in Equiana by calling attention to the enchantments that infuse Equiano's life story—the magical and miraculous events that structure the narrative of his experience and the corresponding concepts of enchanted space and time by which he interprets them. Presenting supernatural experiences as evidence of his sensibility to the enchanted substrata of the world, Equiano, I argue, attempts a counter-cartographic project of locating Africa and Africans at the center of the atlas of world history over and against the dominant British assumption that Africa had no place in the history of human civilization. To accomplish this remapping, Equiano deploys enchanted scenes rhetorically to depict Africa as central to geohistorical time. Concomitantly, in his presentation of miraculous encounters, Equiano stresses a competing hermeneutics of enchantment that sanctions his new depiction and, along with it, his calls for abolition and justice. In focusing on Equiano's sensibility to extraempirical dimensions of geography and history, I hope to provide scholars of secular and religious orientations, as well as those divided over Equiano's empirical birthplace, some ground for collaboration and new discussion.
Olaudah Equiano的魔法
摘要:近年来,关于奥劳达·艾奎亚诺的《有趣的叙事》的许多研究要么集中在艾奎亚诺基督教在后殖民时代的意义上,要么集中在关于艾奎亚诺实际出生地的争论上。可以肯定的是,这些讨论在很多方面都很有启发性,但这篇文章试图通过提请人们注意注入艾奎亚诺人生故事的魅力来改变艾奎亚诺的方向——这些神奇和奇迹般的事件构成了他的经历的叙事,以及他解释这些故事所用的魔法空间和时间的相应概念。我认为,Equiano将超自然的经历作为他对世界迷人底层的敏感性的证据,他试图进行一个反制图项目,将非洲和非洲人定位在世界历史图谱的中心,而不是反对英国关于非洲在人类文明史上没有地位的主要假设。为了完成这一重新映射,Equiano在修辞上部署了迷人的场景,将非洲描绘成地理历史时间的中心。与此同时,在他对奇迹般遭遇的描述中,Equiano强调了一种相互竞争的魅力解释学,这种解释学制裁了他的新描绘,以及他对废除和正义的呼吁。在关注Equiano对地理和历史的经验外维度的敏感性时,我希望为世俗和宗教取向的学者,以及那些对Equiano的经验出生地存在分歧的学者,提供一些合作和新讨论的基础。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE LITERATURE, AMERICAN-
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
33.30%
发文量
62
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信