Monthly Archives: March 2017

The Black Atlantic (220/303)

Here is some background to our discussion about Afrofuturism, taken from a lecture I gave a couple of years ago.

Maritime Culture, America, and the Black Atlantic

“The Oceanic Revolution”: the opening of the Western Hemisphere to exploration and colonization was a world historical event. The central figures of this revolution were sailors and the enslaved.

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This Yellow Slave (415)

Timon: What is here?

Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair,
Wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.
Ha, you gods! why this? what this, you gods? Why, this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides,
Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions, bless the accursed,
Make the hoar leprosy adored, place thieves
And give them title, knee and approbation
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappen’d widow wed again;
She, whom the spital-house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices
To the April day again.