English
Introduction
Gina Athena Ulysse | Wesleyan University
“For Caribbean man, the word is first and foremost sound. Noise is essential to speech. Din is discourse. Creole organizes speech as a blast of sound”1
Don’t you mean rasanblé or rasanbleman?
No, ra-san-blaj in Kreyòl.
n. assembly, compilation, enlisting, regrouping (of ideas,things, people, spirits. For example, fè yon rasanblaj, doa gathering, a ceremony, a protest)
The CALL born to Encounters with Rebellion
Emerged Out of
epistemic conflicts & embodied nightmares
embodied conflicts & epistemic nightmares
It got trapped in times brutal times reminiscent of the colonization of the Americas and plantation Slavery2
D E L A Y E D
S U S P E N D E D
by Constitutions Treaties Neo Black Codes
Had we gotten lost in the malaise of our civilization… drifting as a species in parallel catastrophe?3
“Because these observers did not find grammar books or dictionaries among the savages, because they could not understand or apply the grammatical rules that governed these languages, they promptly concluded that such rules did not exist.”4
“…The decree of January 3, 1788,required free men of color ‘to take outpermits to work anywhere other than in thefields’… liberation means assimilation”5
shedding bourgeois attachments to restraint
Things started to disappear if our bodies are our language then we be portals shape shifters memory carriers professing slackness engaging in processions through the crossroads so dismembered bodies can dedoublereconstituting new historical time coz the dead do not like to be forgotten
On the other side of the water we were drowning in a landfill of hashtags time passed keeps passing we try to patch over fissures speculating in unknown tongues doing round dances reconnecting Land-based revolutionaries saluting the four cardinal points mistaken for a bow to the West
undoing enlightened reason6
Confronting facts of Otherness7 still beholden 2 too many isms Freedom ≠ Liberty53+1=54+1=55/Letter of the Year performance = connectivity archiving drag assemblages(hip)wining the decolonial drumming to conjure ancestors summoning spirits
Excavating indigenous roots slithering through old corridors scrambling geographies of empire remapping newworld cacophonic routes inventing collective epistemic imaginaries moving beyond somatic liberation recharting cartographies of convergences dissidence overstretching diasporas into outer/spaces
breaking metaphysical currents
Are we in the midst of a transformative shift… Calling into question what it means to be human?8
N O UL A
W EH E R E
We do not need a verb to validate our existence
Ou pa chwazi sa ou vle le w’ap fè yon rasanblaj ou ranmanse tout bagay.9 Catalyst. Você não pode ficar escolhendo do lixo, deve recolher tudo. Keyword. On ne choisi pas entre les choses quand on fait un rasanblaj, on ramasse tout . Method. No escogemos de aquí y allá entre los desechos: debemos ensamblar todo junto. Practice. You don’t pick and choose when you make a rasanblaj, you gather everything. Project.
Comment on CoverIt is most fitting then that this virtual Caribbean rasanblaj,e-misférica's first animated cover,features Jeannette Ehlers' homage to the Haitian Revolution.Sky meets ocean.Black youths become Back Bulletsif you watch long enough you see themsplit multiply floatdefying logic of gravitythen submergeanba dloentering this neo-citadel ofunknown futures.
Gina Athena Ulysse is a feminist performance artist-anthropologist-activist and a self-proclaimed Post-Zora Interventionist. She is the author of Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importers, A Haitian Anthropologist and Self-Making in Jamaica (Chicago, 2007) and Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle (Wesleyan, 2015), as well numerous articles, creative works, and opinion pieces. Her most recent writing has been published in AnthroNow, Gastronomica, Transition Magazine, and Souls. She also blogs intermittently for Huffington Post, Ms Magazine, and Tikkun Daily. Her performative multimedia works include VooDooDoll, What if Haiti Were a Woman: On ti Travay sou 21 Pwen or an Alter(ed)native in Something Other than Fiction, a performance/installation project (curated by Lucian Gomoll), which debuted at Encuentro in Montreal in 2014, and Contemplating Distances a new piece on black bodies, grain shortage, and the slave trade. She is currently engaged in meditative battle with an old memoir, Loving Haiti, Loving Vodou: A Book of Rememories, Recipes and Rants. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Wesleyan University. www.ginaathenaulysse.com
Notes
1 Edouard Glissant. 1989. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Translated by J. Michael Dash. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 123-124.
2 Rinado Wolcott. 2015. “Genres of Human: Multiculturalism, Cosmo-Politics, and the Caribbean Basin.” In Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Katherine McKittrick, ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 188.
3 Suzanne Césaire. 2009 [1942]. The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941-1945), ed. Daniel Maximin. Trans. Keith L. Walker. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press; Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick. 2015. Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Ed. Katherine McKittrick. Durham: Duke University Press.
4 Rolph Trouillot. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 7.
5 Césaire, ibid., 31.
6 Gina Athena Ulysse. 2016. “It All Started with a Black Woman: Writing and Performing Rage.” In Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms. Ed. Janell Hobson. (Forthcoming, May 2016)
7 Frantz Fanon. 1991 [1967]. Black Skins White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
8 Demetrius Eudell. 2015. “‘Come on Kid, Let’s Go Get the Thing’: The Sociogenic Principle and the Being of Being Black/Human.” In Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Ed. Katherine McKittrick. Durham: Duke University Press, 243.
9 Madame Jacqueline Epingle, personal conversation, December 2014.
Kreyòl
Entwodiksyon
Gina Athena Ulysse | Wesleyan University
"Pou moun Karayib, pawòl la se premye son. Bri a lesansyèl nan lapawòl. Espektak se diskou. Kreyòl la òganize diskou kòm yon eksplozyon son."1
Se pa rasanble oswa rasanbleman ou vle di?
Non, ra-san-blaj an Kreyòl.
n. asanble, konpilasyon, chèche sipò, regwoupman, (de lide,de bagay, de moun, de lespri. Pa egzanp, fè yon rasanblaj, fè yon rasanbleman, yon seremoni, yon manifestasyon)
Konvokasyon an fèt nan Rankont ak Rebelyon
Sòti Nan
konfli konsyans & kochma enkòpore
konfli enkòpore & kochma konsyans
Li vin bloke nan tan nan tan brital ki fè nou sonje kolonizasyon Amerik yo ak Esklavaj plantasyon an2
A N R E T A
S I S P A N N
pa Konstitisyon Trete Nouvo Kòd Nwa
Èske nou vin pèdi nan malèz sivilizasyon an pa nou… kòm yon espès nan yon katastwòf paralèl?3
“Paske obsèvatè sa yo pa te jwenn liv gramè ou diksyonè pami sovaj yo, paske yo pa te kapab konprann ou aplike règgramatikal ki gouvène lang sa yo, san pèdi tan yo konkli ke règ sa yo pa te egziste.”4
“…Dekrè a 3 janvye 1788mande nèg lib yo 'pou pranpèmi pou travay nenpòt lòt kote pase nan jaden yo' ... liberasyon vle di asimilasyon”5
lache atachman boujwa a kontrent
Bagay yo te konmanse disparèt si kò nou se lang nou lè sa, nou se pòtay fòm manèt memwa transpòtè k ap pwofèsè stagnasyon angaje nan pwosesyon ki pase nan kafou yo se konsa kò demanbre mèt dedouble rekonstitye nouvo tan istorik paske mò yo pa renmen lè nou bliye yo
Sou lòt bò dlo a nou t ap nwaye nan yon dechaj achtag tan pase kontinye pase nou eseye mete plak sou fant k ap kesyonnen nan lang enkonni fè dans wonn rekonekte moun revolisyonè an ki baze sou tè a k ap salye kat pwen kadinal yo yo pran sa pou yon chapò ba devann Lwès la
defèt rezon eklere6
Konfwonte reyalite de sans Lòt7 Toujou atache a twòp -isms Liberasyon ≠ Libète53+1=54+1=55/Lèt pou Ane a pèfòmans = konektivite achiv travesti rale asanblaj yo woule hanch dekolonyal bat tanbou pou evoke zansèt yo konvoke lespri yo
Dekouvri rasin endijèn yo rale vant nan ansyen koulwa deranje jeyografi anpi rekreye kat wout tènouvo plen bri envante imajinasyon kolektif konsyan depase liberasyon an fizik replanifye kat konvèjans disidans k ap lonje djyaspora yo nan espas/andeyò
kraze kouran yo metafizik
Èske nou nan mitan yon transfòmasyon… K ap fè nou mande signifikasyon kesyon eske tout moun se moun?8
N O UL A
N O UL A
Nou pa bezwen yon vèb pou valide egzistans nou
You don’t pick and choose when you do a rasanblaj, you gather everything. Katalis. Você não pode ficar escolhendo do lixo, deve recolher tudo. Mò kle. On ne choisi pas entre les choses quand on fait un rasanblaj, on ramasse tout . Metòd. No escogemos de aquí y allá entre los desechos: debemos ensamblar todo junto. Pratik. Ou pa chwazi sa ou vle lè w ap fè yon rasanblaj ou ranmanse tout bagay.9 Pwojè.
Kòmantè sou Kouvèti a Li apwopriye ke rasanblaj vityèl Karayib sa a primye kouvèti anime e-misférica met aksan sou omaj Ehler a Revolisyon Ayisyen an lasyèl la rankontre ak Lanmè a jèn nwa vin tounen bal nwa si w gade lontan w ap wè yo fann miltipliye flute defye lojik gravite epi simèje anba dlo antre nan nouvo-sitadèl de lavni enkonni.
Tradui pa Wynnie Lamour.
Gina Athena Ulysse se yon atis pèfòmans-antwopològ-aktivis feminis ki pwoklame tèt li yon Post-Zora Entèvansyonis. Li se otè Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importers, A Haitian Anthropologist and Self-Making in Jamaica (Chicago, 2007) ak Why Haiti Needs New Narratives: A Post Quake Chronicle (Wesleyan, 2015), osi byen anpil atik, travay kreyatif , ak pyès opinyon. Pi resan zèv li te pibliye nan AnthroNow, Gastronomica, Transition Magazine, ak Souls. Tanzantan li ekri pou for Huffington Post,Ms Magazine, ak Tikkun Daily. Travay miltimedya pèrfòmativ li enkli VooDooDoll, What if Haiti Were a Woman: On ti Travay sou 21 Pwen or an Alter(ed)native in Something Other than Fiction, yon pwojè pèfòmans/enstalasyon (òganize pa Lucian Gomoll), ki premye nan Encuentro nan Monreyal nan 2014, ak Contemplating Distances, yon nouvo pyès sou kò nwa, mank grenn jaden, ak komès esklav la. Kounyea li angaje nan yon batay meditasyon ak yon vye Byografi,Loving Haiti, Loving Vodou: A Book of Rememories, Recipes and Rants. Li se yon pwofesè asosye nan antwopoloji nan Wesleyan University. www.ginaathenaulysse.com
Notes
1 Eduard Glissant. 1989. Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Translated by J. Michael Dash. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 123-124.
2 Rinado Wolcott. 2015. “Genres of Human: Multiculturalism, Cosmo-Politics, and the Caribbean Basin.” In Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Katherine McKittrick, ed. Durham: Duke University Press, 188.
3 Suzanne Césaire. 2009 [1942]. The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941-1945), ed. Daniel Maximin. Trans. Keith L. Walker. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press; Sylvia Wynter and Katherine McKittrick. 2015. Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Ed. Katherine McKittrick. Durham: Duke University Press.
4 Rolph Trouillot. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press, 7.
5 Césaire, ibid., 31.
6 Gina Athena Ulysse. 2016. “It All Started with a Black Woman: Writing and Performing Rage.” In Are All the Women Still White? Rethinking Race, Expanding Feminisms. Ed. Janell Hobson. (Forthcoming, May 2016)
7 Frantz Fanon. 1991 [1967]. Black Skins White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Press.
8 Demetrius Eudell. 2015. “‘Come on Kid, Let’s Go Get the Thing’: The Sociogenic Principle and the Being of Being Black/Human.” In Sylvia Wynter on Being Human as Praxis. Ed. Katherine McKittrick. Durham: Duke University Press, 243.
9 Madame Jacqueline Epingle, personal conversation, December 2014.