Introductory description

The Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe have been French for longer than Calais or Strasbourg and, as ‘overseas departments’, are still integral parts of the French nation. Their inhabitants have been fully-fledged French citizens since 1946, yet their ancestors were enslaved in Africa and shipped to the Caribbean to be set to work in the most inhumane of conditions by the French. By 1848, when slave rebellions and the work of French abolitionists, along with the revolutionary discourse of 'liberté, égalité, fraternité', finally made slavery untenable in the 'pays des droits de l'homme', Victor Schœlcher was sent to the Caribbean to announce that France was liberating her slaves from servitude, and the French colonial 'mission civilisatrice' began. During the course of this module, we will explore the paradoxes that have arisen from this history, examining what it means to be French when you live thousands of kilometres from France, and what it means to be Caribbean when your island is so culturally and linguistically French. We will begin by looking at the history of colonisation and slavery in the French Caribbean and then we will study twentieth- and twenty-first-century writing from both islands - texts which all deal, in one way or another, with the continuing legacies of slavery today.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1 Lecture: Introduction : Slavery and its Legacies in the Francophone Caribbean
Seminar: Extracts from Le Code Noir (1785) ; Voyage aux îles de l’Amerique (1693-1705)

2 Lecture: History and Memory
Seminar: Maryse Condé, Victoire, les saveurs et les mots

3 Lecture: Maryse Condé, Victoire, les saveurs et les mots
Seminar: Maryse Condé, Victoire, les saveurs et les mots

4 Lecture: Assimilation and Alienation
Seminar: Extracts from Frantz Fanon, Peau noire, masques blancs

5 Lecture: Négritude
Seminar: Extracts from Aimé Césaire, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal

6 Reading Week

7 Lecture: Beyond the Plantation : Créolité
Seminar: Patrick Chamoiseau, Chronique des sept misères

8 Lecture: Patrick Chamoiseau, Chronique des sept misères
Seminar: Patrick Chamoiseau, Chronique des sept misères

9 Lecture: The Contemporary Urban Novel : Postcréolité
Seminar: Nichole Cage-Florentiny, L’Espagnole

10 Lecture: Nicole Cage-Florentiny, L’Espagnole
Seminar: Nicole Cage-Florentiny, L’Espagnole

1. Revision session

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand the history, literature and politics of Martinique and Guadeloupe
• Analyse the legacies of slavery in a variety of texts
• Discuss these texts using insights from wider postcolonial theory

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Specific reading list for the module

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of French culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. In particular, students’ awareness of the Francophone Caribbean will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.