{"product_id":"monsters-and-revolutionaries-colonial-family-romance-and-metissage-paperback","title":"Monsters and Revolutionaries: Colonial Family Romance and Metissage - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eFrançoise Vergès\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMonsters and Revolutionaries\u003c\/i\u003e Françoise Vergès analyzes the complex relationship between the colonizer and colonized on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion. Through novels, iconography, and texts from various disciplines including law, medicine, and psychology, Vergès constructs a political and cultural history of the island's relations with France. Woven throughout is Vergès's own family history, which is intimately tied to the history of Réunion itself. \u003cbr\u003e\tOriginally settled by sugar plantation owners and their Indian and African slaves following a seventeenth-century French colonial decree, Réunion abolished slavery in 1848. Because plantation owners continued to import workers from India, Africa, Asia, and Madagascar, the island was defined as a place based on mixed heritages, or \u003ci\u003emétissage\u003c\/i\u003e. Vergès reads the relationship between France and the residents of Réunion as a family romance: France is the seemingly protective mother, \u003ci\u003eLa Mère-Patrie, \u003c\/i\u003e while the people of Réunion are seen and see themselves as France's children. Arguing that the central dynamic in the colonial family romance is that of debt and dependence, Verges explains how the republican ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment are seen as gifts to Réunion that can never be repaid. This dynamic is complicated by the presence of \u003ci\u003emétissage\u003c\/i\u003e, a source of anxiety to the colonizer in its refutation of the \"purity\" of racial bloodlines. For Vergès, the island's history of slavery is the key to understanding \u003ci\u003emétissage\u003c\/i\u003e, the politics of assimilation, constructions of masculinity, and emancipatory discourses on Réunion.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA brilliant piece of work. . . . Monsters and Revolutionaries\" promises to be an important intervention in the fields of political history and postcolonial discourse.\"--Ali Behdad, University of California at Los Angeles\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrançoise Vergès is a Lecturer at the School of European Studies at the University of Sussex. She recently collaborated with Isaac Julien on a film about Frantz Fanon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 416\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.22 x 8.97 x 5.85 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrated:\u003c\/strong\u003e Yes\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e June 11, 1999\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42130352046215,"sku":"9780822322948","price":64.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/84ad4a6a07988d7ea51208f2485e4c7a.webp?v=1732610150","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/monsters-and-revolutionaries-colonial-family-romance-and-metissage-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}