ABSTRACT

Exploring the genesis, transformation and afterlives of The Black Jacobins, this article follows the revision trail of James’s evolving interest in Toussaint Louverture. How does James “show” as drama versus “tell” as history? Building on Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s idea of “silencing the past,” this article argues that James engages in an equally active and transitive reverse process of unsilencing the past. James’s own unsilencing of certain negative representations of the Haitian Revolution is evaluated, as is James’s move away from presenting the colonized as passive objects, instead turning them instead into active subjects. James should be recognized as a precursor to “history from below.” It uncovers James’s “writing in” of more popular leaders, masses and Haitian crowd scenes, of whom there is little archival trace. James’s own making of The Black Jacobins over nearly sixty years is linked to the process of rasanblaj (re-assembly, gathering) and the search for Caribbean identity.

摘要

探索黑人雅各宾派的起源、转变和来世，本文跟随詹姆斯对 Toussaint Louverture 不断发展的兴趣的修订轨迹。詹姆斯如何“展示”为戏剧而不是“讲述”为历史？基于 Michel-Rolph Trouillot 的“沉默过去”的想法，本文认为詹姆斯参与了一个同样活跃和传递的逆向过程沉默过去。詹姆斯自己对海地革命的某些负面表述的沉默被评估，詹姆斯不再将被殖民者呈现为被动对象，而是将它们变成主动主体。詹姆斯应该被认为是“自下而上的历史”的先驱。它揭示了詹姆斯对更受欢迎的领导人、群众和海地人群场景的“写入”，这些场景几乎没有档案痕迹。詹姆斯自己在近 60 年间创作的《黑人雅各宾派》与rasanblaj（重新组装、聚集）和寻找加勒比身份的过程有关。