Classicisms in the Black Atlantic ed. by Ian Moyer, Adam Lecznar and Heidi Morse (review)

Abstract

his volume is a groundbreaking study of how Classical texts, tropes, figures, art, myths and history have been received, used, deployed and interpreted within the Black Atlantic. The book aims to show how artists and intellectuals in the Black Atlantic have excavated the classical texts, images, narratives and practices in order to imagine new possibilities. The essays emphasize the outcomes of slavery’s aftermaths by way of various geographical (dis)location and cultural connections. The volume is divided into three parts: 1) Wakes, 2) Journeys and 3) Tales. The editors grace the book with a programmatic Introduction in which they lay out the aims and contours of the project. Paul Gilroy’s famous work on the Black Atlantic provides the broad conceptual framework for these analyses of the reception of the classics in the diasporic world.