Carl Plasa – författare

With excerpts from interviews and reviews, an exploration of the historical documents and slave narrative traditions on which Morrison drew, and an insightful juxtaposition of psychoanalytic and postcolonial approaches to the novel, this guide places Beloved in the contexts of Morrison's oeuvre and other works of African American literature. Chapters focus on the supernatural elements of the work, as well as the author's treatment of the physical self.

The writings of Charlotte Brontë - a member of one of the great literary families - have inspired, fascinated and moved readers ever since their first publication in the mid-nineteenth century. In this new study, Carl Plasa elaborates a series of textually focused, historically grounded and theoretically informed analyses of the full range of the author's texts. As well as providing original readings of Brontë's four best known novels - The Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley and Villette - attention is given to less familiar and critically neglected areas of Brontë's work, such as the Ashanti narratives, the poetry and the Belgian essays of the early 1840s. Charlotte Brontë's work has undergone a significant reassessment from a postcolonial critical perspective in recent years. By examining Brontë's textual production from its exuberant and experimental beginnings to the formal complexity of Villette, her last completed novel, Plasa offers what is the most comprehensive exploration to date of the shifts in the writer's engagement with the question of colonialism. In so doing, he brings to light the subtle relationships of continuity and transformation between the earlier and later stages of Brontë's literary career and demonstrates the extent to which that career was sparked and driven by her 'colonial imagination'.

The writings of Charlotte Brontë - a member of one of the great literary families - have inspired, fascinated and moved readers ever since their first publication in the mid-nineteenth century. In this new study, Carl Plasa elaborates a series of textually focused, historically grounded and theoretically informed analyses of the full range of the author's texts. As well as providing original readings of Brontë's four best known novels - The Professor, Jane Eyre, Shirley and Villette - attention is given to less familiar and critically neglected areas of Brontë's work, such as the Ashanti narratives, the poetry and the Belgian essays of the early 1840s. Charlotte Brontë's work has undergone a significant reassessment from a postcolonial critical perspective in recent years. By examining Brontë's textual production from its exuberant and experimental beginnings to the formal complexity of Villette, her last completed novel, Plasa offers what is the most comprehensive exploration to date of the shifts in the writer's engagement with the question of colonialism. In so doing, he brings to light the subtle relationships of continuity and transformation between the earlier and later stages of Brontë's literary career and demonstrates the extent to which that career was sparked and driven by her 'colonial imagination'.

First published in 1994. The Discourse of Slavery is an innovative collection of fascinating essays addressing the problematic of slavery within literary, cultural and political writings. For the first time, slavery is examined critically within both the British and the American context, and related to contemporary concerns around race and gender. Writers discussed include: Aphra Behn William Blake Mary Wollstonecraft Charlotte Bronte Elizabeth Gaskell Toni Morrison William Faulkner Harriet Jacobs Harriet Beecher Stowe Frederick Douglass The Discourse of Slavery will be an invaluable and intriguing volume for students of literature, gender, race and ethnicity.

Examines a range of literary responses to images drawn from the transatlantic slave trade and its aftermathA focus on texts that (with the obvious exception of David Dabydeen's 'Turner' [1994]) exist at the critical and canonical marginAn emphasis on Black Atlantic writers, designed to counter the bias in much ekphrastic criticism towards white authorsLocation of African American literature in conversation with African American as well as white American artSince around 2000, there has been a noticeable upsurge in critical work on the visual archive of Atlantic slavery, resulting in a host of important studies. While most of these contributions are weighted towards images created during the era of slavery itself, some critics have adopted a more historically far-reaching approach, exploring the ways in which such images live on beyond the original context of their production, circulation and consumption, returning imaginatively in different forms at different times and in different places. This book shares the fascination with the afterlives which such visual materials have enjoyed, but places the accent on how that posterity has evolved in the realms of literature, especially poetry. It focuses on transactions between texts written between the mid-1990s and 2020 and images of slavery that belong to British, American and (in one case) French traditions, as produced between c. 1779 and 1939.

Since around 2000, there has been a noticeable upsurge in critical work on the visual archive of Atlantic slavery, resulting in a host of important studies. While most of these contributions are weighted towards images created during the era of slavery itself, some critics have adopted a more historically far-reaching approach, exploring the ways in which such images live on beyond the original context of their production, circulation and consumption, returning imaginatively in different forms at different times and in different places. This book shares the fascination with the afterlives which such visual materials have enjoyed, but places the accent on how that posterity has evolved in the realms of literature, especially poetry. It focuses on transactions between texts written between the mid-1990s and 2020 and images of slavery that belong to British, American and (in one case) French traditions, as produced between c. 1779 and 1939.

First published in 1994. The Discourse of Slavery is an innovative collection of fascinating essays addressing the problematic of slavery within literary, cultural and political writings. For the first time, slavery is examined critically within both the British and the American context, and related to contemporary concerns around race and gender. Writers discussed include: Aphra Behn William Blake Mary Wollstonecraft Charlotte Bronte Elizabeth Gaskell Toni Morrison William Faulkner Harriet Jacobs Harriet Beecher Stowe Frederick Douglass The Discourse of Slavery will be an invaluable and intriguing volume for students of literature, gender, race and ethnicity.

Apparently innocuous, sugar is a substance which brings with it a profound disquiet, not least because of its direct links with the histories of slavery in the New World. These links have long been a source of critical fascination, generating several landmark analyses, ranging from Fernando Ortis’s Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (1940) and Noël Deerr’s monumental two-volume The History of Sugar (1949-50) to Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (1985).Unlike previous texts, Plasa’s meticulously researched book not only examines the traditional classic studies but also the hitherto largely ignored work produced by a number of expatriate Caribbean authors, both male and female, from the 1980s onwards. As a result Slaves to Sweetness provides the most comprehensive account to date of the historical transformations which sugar’s representation has undergone, providing a rich resource for scholars in Slavery, Caribbean, Black Atlantic, Postcolonial and Literary Studies.