Freedom as Marronage

By Neil Roberts

Book Overview

What is the opposite of freedom? In Freedom as Marronage, Neil Roberts answers this question with definitive force: slavery, and from there he unveils powerful new insights on the human condition as it has been understood between these poles. Crucial to his investigation is the concept of marronage-a form of slave escape that was an important aspect of Caribbean and Latin American slave systems. Examining this overlooked phenomenon-one of action from slavery and toward freedom-he deepens our understanding of freedom itself and the origin of our political ideals.

Roberts examines the liminal and transitional space of slave escape in order to develop a theory of freedom as marronage, which contends that freedom is fundamentally located within this space-that it is a form of perpetual flight. He engages a stunning variety of writers, including Hannah Arendt, W. E. B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the Rastafari, among others, to develop a compelling lens through which to interpret the quandaries of slavery, freedom, and politics that still confront us today. The result is a sophisticated, interdisciplinary work that unsettles the ways we think about freedom by always casting it in the light of its critical opposite.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 022620104X
• ISBN13: 9780226201047
• Release Date: February 2015
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"