The Logic of Slavery: Debt, Technology, and Pain in American Literature

Description

In American history and throughout the Western world, the subjugation perpetuated by slavery has created a unique “culture of slavery.” That culture exists as a metaphorical, artistic, and literary tradition attached to the enslaved – human beings whose lives are “owed” to another, who are used as instruments by another, and who must endure suffering in silence. Tim Armstrong explores the metaphorical legacy of slavery in American culture by investigating debt, technology, and pain in African-American literature and a range of other writings and artworks. Armstrong's careful analysis reveals how notions of the slave as a debtor lie hidden in our accounts of the commodified self and how writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison grapple with the pervasive view that slaves are akin to machines. Finally, Armstrong examines how conceptions of the slave as a container of suppressed pain are reflected in disciplines as diverse as art, sculpture, music, and psychology. THE LOGIC OF SLAVERY Dedication Title Copyright Contents Figures Acknowledgements Introduction CHAPTER 1: Slavery, Insurance, and Sacrifice: The Embodiment of Capital IN TRANSIT: INSURING SLAVES THE ZONG CASE: GREGSON V. GILBERT MARITIME CANNIBALISM, OR WHY EATING PEOPLE IS WRONG CHAPTER 2: Debt, Self-Redemption, and Foreclosure PERSONS, PROPERTY, AND SELF-REDEMPTION DEBT, NARRATIVE, AND THE SUSPENDED SENTENCE ‘LOST TIME’: FAULKNER AND FORECLOSURE BEYOND DEBT? CHAPTER 3: Machines inside the Machine: Slavery and Technology ANCIENT SLAVERY AND TECHNOLOGY MACHINES REPLACING SLAVES? AMERICAN HISTORY WASHINGTON, ELLISON, DU BOIS: MACHINES INSIDE THE MACHINE THE MACHINE AS SLAVE BETWEEN THE WARS: SLAVE-POWER AND HORSEPOWER CHAPTER 4: The Hands of Others: Sculpture and Pain LABOUR AND IDEAL MAKING AMERICANS SCULPTURAL PAIN AND THE OBDURATE TONGUE THE MARBLE FAUN THE INDUSTRIAL SCULPTURE MACHINE WHITENESS AND THE LOST IDEAL THE TRIUMPH OF THE IMAGE CHAPTER 5: The Sonic Veil WASH POTS AND SORROW SONGS THE MUSIC NOT HEARD WITH THE EARS LEARNING TO LISTEN RECORDING MACHINES: JOHN LOMAX’S IDENTIFICATIONS RECORDING TECHNOLOGY CHAPTER 6: Slavery in the Mind: Trauma and the Weather RACE AS TRAUMA RACE AS WEATHER: MINDS AND METEORS CHARLES CHESNUTT: TRAUMA AND LOCALISM THE SOUTH’S WEATHER: THE AMERICAN CLAIMANT WEATHER AND RACE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Notes Index