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Transatlantic Circulation and Transformation of Ideas: The Impact of the Enlightenment in Contemporary Franco-Caribbean Literatures

Subject Area European and American Literary and Cultural Studies
African, American and Oceania Studies
General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies
General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
History of Philosophy
History of Science
Term from 2017 to 2022
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 338786775
 
Final Report Year 2022

Final Report Abstract

How important are the ideas of the Enlightenment still today? The research project addressed this question. The hypothesis that in current Franco-Caribbean literatures, despite the obvious rejection of European thought patterns, the Enlightenment paradigm with its ideas and cultural values is still present, although translated and transformed in many different ways, could be confirmed. Enlightenment is here not understood as a closed epoch, but as an open and normative-ethical ensemble of concepts creating productive ambivalences in the non-European postcolonial reception and significantly contribute to the constitution of Franco-Caribbean societies and literatures. In three qualification monographies (two dissertations and a second book by the postdoc) and a joint research publication, the multi-layered references to the Enlightenment were examined on the basis of a broad corpus of Franco-Caribbean literature. It has been shown that these literatures tie in with the Enlightenment discourse in different ways and thus present alternative designs for conviviality (sub-project I, Halle), design new poetics of the human body (sub-project II, Halle) and present innovative ecological ways of dealing with nature (Subproject III, Bremen). Of course, the Caribbean experience with their complex mixture of colonization, delocalization, slavery, plantation economy and creolization influence the transformation of these ideas in a special way; however, such postcolonial transformations of Enlightenment thought can also be found in other spaces affected by colonialism. The research results therefore have a paradigmatic character. It could be shown that anthropological-philosophical key concepts are received as well as epistemes and axioms, concrete texts, narrative patterns, discourse formats, metaphors and motif chains. The study of texts from the corpus has shown that concepts, discourse elements and motifs are not simply adopted, but undergo transformations and translations in a variety of ways, both in affirmative and in critical form. The historically evolved reception paths became visible by concrete case studies on actors (settlers, scientists, writers), networks (academies, circles, clubs) and media (letters, plays, travel stories). The assumption that the transfer of knowledge and ideas takes place in the form of a transatlantic circulation movement between France and the Caribbean has also been confirmed. Theoretical reflections from Caribbean thinkers on concepts of transfer underline this. The case studies have shown that the Enlightenment ideas circulated through political debates, scientific exchange, expeditions and travels, institutions, family connections, readings, i.e. via various relay stations, in a multi-directional polyphonic transatlantic discourse space, in which they continue to work today.

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