Poetics of the Abyss: History, Aesthetics, and Decoloniality in Édouard Glissant's Early Thought

<p>This dissertation follows the possibilities of a specific form of Caribbean thought that arises out of the particularities of Antillean history: Édouard Glissant’s notions of antillanité and an archipelagic thought. By means of a critical analysis of one of the “beginnings” of the history of the Caribbean (the slave trade and in particular the Middle Passage), and the way in which they configure a paradoxical, abyssal experience, I show why it is imperative for Glissant to challenge a traditional account of history that he connects with a Western conception of temporality and spatiality. In this confrontation, Glissant’s philosophy of Caribbean history becomes not only a form of comprehension of the colonized present out of a disruptive, abyssal history, but also a possibility for its transformation, for decolonization. Such approach to history constitutes, according to Glissant, a poetic endeavor, and not a historical, disciplinary one.</p>

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Philosophy

Year dc:date.available

2019

Author dc:creator

• Gualdron Ramirez, Miguel

• Glissant
• aesthetics
• philosophy of history
• decolonial thought
• Caribbean

Repository record dc:identifier

https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/279

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:via.library.depaul.edu:etd-1282