Speaking for the slave: Britain and the Cape, 1751-1838
Postcolonial studies has asked the question "Can the subaltern speak? ", but has focused less strongly on the strategies by which the subaltern is prevented from securing a hearing. The textual and social strategies used to prevent Cape slaves in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries from voicing their plight have been neglected, though both pro- and anti-slavery lobbyists were eloquent. To present the slave as one whose inferiority rendered him incapable of pleading his cause was a device of the pro-slavery group; to pretend that consultation was impossible was another, though people who offered this defence were often surrounded by slaves. Others, accepting and profiting from the inequalities of a class-stratified society, were unable to perceive any but the extreme experiences of an unfree condition as constituting injustice. Anti-slavery campaigners were rarely in favour of the slave's being consulted: they preferred to condemn their political rivals, the slave-owners. Abolition found many of them searching for arguments to maintain the inequalities of society, and especially to prevent former serfs from securing a hearing.
Slavery: Annual bibliographical supplement (2004)
JOSEPH C. MILLER has worked on the development of this bibliography since 1977, with the assistance of many colleagues and the institutional support of the University of Virginia. The 2004 annual supplement is the first to be compiled by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, at Yale University. Slavery and Abolition Vol. 26, No. 3, December 2005, pp. 421–516
The Autobiographical Subject: Gender and Ideology in Eighteenth-Century England
'Co-recipient of the American Association for Eighteenth-Century Studies' Louis Gottschalk Prize' "Acutely analyzes the construction of gendered character in canonical British autobiographical texts and provides provocative explorations outside the canon, particularly among first-person narratives by women."--'Diacritics' '"[Nussbaum's] achievement...is profound. The theoretical framework is clear and consistent, the range of historical specificity broad and convincing, the analysis of specific texts sophisticated and compelling, the prose straightforward and free of obfuscating jargon. 'The Autobiographical Subject' is rich and richly rewarding for scholars of the eighteenth century. It deserves to be read by everyone who thinks about autobiographical practice."--Sidonie Smith, 'a/b: Auto/Biography Studies' Felicity Nussbaum considers the convergence of genre, gender, and class in an important reassessment of autobiographical writing in England from John Bunyan to Hester Thrale. "'The Autobiographical Subject', with its combination of provocative theory and sound scholarship, deserves a wide readership. Felicity Nussbaum's insights demand the attention of eighteenth-century scholars, feminist critics, and cultural historians, while the central questions raised by the book--how to define the 'self'? why write, why revise, and especially, why 'publish' an autobiography?--are of interest to everyone."--Fiona Stafford, 'Review of English Studies' "An exemplary model of political criticism."--'Eighteenth-Century Fiction' '"In 'The Autobiographical Subject' Felicity Nussbaum sees autobiography as the point of convergence of a set of phenomena linking class, genre and gender in the eighteenth century; and traces the new possibilities of definition of a middle-class self, and assertion of female identity in print, within the form...The volume makes an important contribution to feminist discussion of the period."--'The Year's Work in English Studies'