French Speaking Worlds: Audrey Celestine - Negritude Experiments: Aimé Césaire and the Politics of Culture in Martinique (1970s)

Please join French Speaking Worlds: Then and Now for Negritude Experiments: Aimé Césaire and the Politics of Culture in Martinique (1970s), a talk with Audrey Celestine (New York University)

Abstract: How can processes of emancipation be conceived within a political framework that does not entail independence? What forms can decolonization take in a society that remains institutionally embedded within a former colonial power? And how did culture come to occupy a central place in both political thought and practice in this context? More specifically, what role did Aimé Césaire, as both intellectual and elected official, play in articulating and implementing such a project? In this paper, I use Léopold Sédar Senghor’s visit to Martinique in February 1976 as a pivotal event through which to examine the political and social dynamics at the heart of the study of Aimé Césaire’s cultural policy during his tenure as mayor of Fort--de-France. Initially conceived as a case study within a broader section on Césaire’s diasporic ambitions, the visit instead emerges as a structuring thread, bringing into focus the tensions between local, national, and diasporic political imaginaries and practices. The encounter between Senghor and Césaire thus offers a lens through which to explore the possibilities and contradictions of an emancipatory project pursued within, rather than outside, the French political framework—and the central role culture came to play in defining its horizons.

Audrey Célestine is an Associate professor in History and French Studies at NYU.  Her work focuses on migration, memory, race, and identity in France, the French Caribbean (Martinique, Guadeloupe), and the United States. Her first book, La Fabrique des Identités, is a historical comparison of the collective journeys of Puerto Ricans in New York and French Caribbeans in Paris since the mid-20th century. It was published in 2018 by Karthala. She also published Une famille française. Des Antilles à Dunkerque en passant par l'Algérie (Textuel, 2018), which discusses the impact of migration, exile, colonization, race, and identity on the lives of four generations of an "ordinary" French family. Her latest book, titled Des Vies de Combat. Femmes, Noires et Libres (L'Iconoclaste, 2020, 2022), features portraits of Black women from the 19th to the 21st century. Her fourth and current book project is tentatively titled Negritude Experiments.

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