Ifeona H Fulani | New York University (original) (raw)
Papers by Ifeona H Fulani
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2003
... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wi... more ... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wished I could answer, for myself as well as for him. ... [End Page 150]. "That is Ganesh," Shireen whispers, "our god of luck and prosperity.". We sit on cushions on the floor, awaiting the astrologer. ...
African American Studies Center, Jun 1, 2016
African American Studies Center, Jun 1, 2016
Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, 2005
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Mar 1, 2003
... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wi... more ... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wished I could answer, for myself as well as for him. ... [End Page 150]. "That is Ganesh," Shireen whispers, "our god of luck and prosperity.". We sit on cushions on the floor, awaiting the astrologer. ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Caribbean Quarterly, 2015
Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the ver... more Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the very sign of that change. In creolisation, you can change, you can be with the Other, you can change with the Other while being yourself, you are not one, you are multiple . . .- Edouard GlissantIN THE AFTERMATH OF THE LONDON RIOTS of August 2011, British historian David Starkey provoked a storm of public outrage when, in a discussion on BBC Television on the cause of the riots, he stated that "the problem is that whites have become black . . . What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs have become black."1 Starkey's comment was condemned by black and white pundits alike, primarily because his attempt to explain the participation of white youths - "chavs" - in the rioting and looting invoked racist stereotypes of unruly/riotous black youth.2 Furthermore, Starkey's reference to chavs, a white, urban working-class subculture whose male members adopt so-called gangster fashions and street slang, also invokes the menacing, stereotypical spectre of black male criminality, thought to influence the style and behaviours of chavs.Louise Bennett's poem "Colonization in Reverse", written in the 1950s, commented satirically and prophetically on the influential presence of West Indians who emigrated to Britain in the years following the end of World War II.3 Her observations in this poem anticipated Starkey's remarks by several decades. This essay, focusing on literary representations of West Indians in London, examines the implications of the surprising convergence of views expressed by Starkey and by Bennett, specifically their allusions to what Starkey described as the "blackening" of white Britons, and what Bennett described as "colonization in reverse".Under consideration is the high period of twentieth-century West Indian immigration, bracketed in the West Indian literature of immigration by Samuel Selvon's 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners4 and Zadie Smith's 2001 novel White Teeth.5 In the intervening forty-five years, a canon of West Indian writing, as well as other creative expressions, emerged, with representations of immigration experiences that included arrival, the embattled process of settlement and the struggle for social acceptance, and the particular challenges of the second generation.Drawing on representations of relations between West Indian immigrants and British natives in literature published in the latter half of the twentieth century, this essay focuses on two broad phases of West Indian immigration, settlement, and social interaction with Britons in London, and comments on developments that would support Starkey's and Bennett's claims. The first period spans 1948, the year the passenger ship the HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Southampton, to 1981, the year of the Brixton and Tottenham uprisings, which marked a turning point in black politics in London and in the country as a whole. In the phase that followed, 1981-2001, black identities forged in the preceding decades by the processes of settlement, adaptation and inter-racial relationships - identities categorised by Stuart Hall as new ethnicities - emerged, to be embraced and consolidated by some second-, thirdand even first-generation West Indians, or rejected by others who cleaved to a remembered, rather than lived West Indianness.6To elucidate observations derived from the creative literature, this essay also draws on contemporaneous criticism produced by British scholars in the disciplines of cultural studies and postcolonial studies, as well as migration studies, and on theories of creolisation from the disciplines of sociology and history.The postwar periodThe first wave of West Indian migrants comprised predominantly young men escaping economic hardship at home by responding to the promise of jobs in the postwar reconstruction of London. But by the late 1950s, women were arriving in increasingly greater numbers to take jobs in the new National Health Service hospitals and on London transport. …
Caribbean Quarterly, 2015
Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the ver... more Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the very sign of that change. In creolisation, you can change, you can be with the Other, you can change with the Other while being yourself, you are not one, you are multiple . . .- Edouard GlissantIN THE AFTERMATH OF THE LONDON RIOTS of August 2011, British historian David Starkey provoked a storm of public outrage when, in a discussion on BBC Television on the cause of the riots, he stated that "the problem is that whites have become black . . . What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs have become black."1 Starkey's comment was condemned by black and white pundits alike, primarily because his attempt to explain the participation of white youths - "chavs" - in the rioting and looting invoked racist stereotypes of unruly/riotous black youth.2 Furthermore, Starkey's reference to chavs, a white, urban working-class subculture whose male members adopt so-called gangster fashions and street slang, also invokes the menacing, stereotypical spectre of black male criminality, thought to influence the style and behaviours of chavs.Louise Bennett's poem "Colonization in Reverse", written in the 1950s, commented satirically and prophetically on the influential presence of West Indians who emigrated to Britain in the years following the end of World War II.3 Her observations in this poem anticipated Starkey's remarks by several decades. This essay, focusing on literary representations of West Indians in London, examines the implications of the surprising convergence of views expressed by Starkey and by Bennett, specifically their allusions to what Starkey described as the "blackening" of white Britons, and what Bennett described as "colonization in reverse".Under consideration is the high period of twentieth-century West Indian immigration, bracketed in the West Indian literature of immigration by Samuel Selvon's 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners4 and Zadie Smith's 2001 novel White Teeth.5 In the intervening forty-five years, a canon of West Indian writing, as well as other creative expressions, emerged, with representations of immigration experiences that included arrival, the embattled process of settlement and the struggle for social acceptance, and the particular challenges of the second generation.Drawing on representations of relations between West Indian immigrants and British natives in literature published in the latter half of the twentieth century, this essay focuses on two broad phases of West Indian immigration, settlement, and social interaction with Britons in London, and comments on developments that would support Starkey's and Bennett's claims. The first period spans 1948, the year the passenger ship the HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Southampton, to 1981, the year of the Brixton and Tottenham uprisings, which marked a turning point in black politics in London and in the country as a whole. In the phase that followed, 1981-2001, black identities forged in the preceding decades by the processes of settlement, adaptation and inter-racial relationships - identities categorised by Stuart Hall as new ethnicities - emerged, to be embraced and consolidated by some second-, thirdand even first-generation West Indians, or rejected by others who cleaved to a remembered, rather than lived West Indianness.6To elucidate observations derived from the creative literature, this essay also draws on contemporaneous criticism produced by British scholars in the disciplines of cultural studies and postcolonial studies, as well as migration studies, and on theories of creolisation from the disciplines of sociology and history.The postwar periodThe first wave of West Indian migrants comprised predominantly young men escaping economic hardship at home by responding to the promise of jobs in the postwar reconstruction of London. But by the late 1950s, women were arriving in increasingly greater numbers to take jobs in the new National Health Service hospitals and on London transport. …
Atlantic Studies, 2017
ABSTRACT This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handswo... more ABSTRACT This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs, Twilight City, and Dreaming Rivers by the black British film collectives Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa, respectively. Black Audio and Sankofa emerged in the mid-1980s as activists and innovators in the fields of video and film arts. Formed by male and female filmmakers of African, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian descent, they were born out of the struggles waged by black Britons in the 1980s to shape a new cultural politics and a new politics of representation. An important stage in the ongoing struggle to gain acknowledgement of diversity within “the black British experience,” and to gain control over representations of that diversity, was that of breaking the historic silence of black British women of Caribbean origins. As a result of the new cultural politics, and for the first time, black women artists gained the means to give voice to their experience and their concerns through the medium of film. At a moment when debates on representation necessarily provoked questions of racial, national, ethnic, and individual identity, the impact of migration on black women’s identity formation became a pressing concern, if not to the community as a whole, then certainly to the women. The paper evaluates the two films as responses to these debates by filmmakers committed to giving voice to black women.
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2005
... 22. Alison Donnell reviews the critical response to this text in "She Ties Her Tongue: T... more ... 22. Alison Donnell reviews the critical response to this text in "She Ties Her Tongue: The Problems of Cultural Paralysis in Postcolonial Criticism," Ariel 26, no. ... Verna Aardema, Ananci Does the Impossible! (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1997). ...
Anthurium a Caribbean Studies Journal, 2005
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2011
This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs... more This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs, Twilight City, and Dreaming Rivers by the black British film collectives Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa, respectively. Black Audio and Sankofa emerged in the mid-1980s as activists and innovators in the fields of video and film arts. Formed by male and female filmmakers of African, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian descent, they were born out of the struggles waged by black Britons in the 1980s to shape a new cultural politics and a new politics of representation. An important stage in the ongoing struggle to gain acknowledgement of diversity within " the black British experience, " and to gain control over representations of that diversity, was that of breaking the historic silence of black British women of Caribbean origins. As a result of the new cultural politics, and for the first time, black women artists gained the means to give voice to their experience and their concerns through the medium of film. At a moment when debates on representation necessarily provoked questions of racial, national, ethnic, and individual identity, the impact of migration on black women's identity formation became a pressing concern, if not to the community as a whole, then certainly to the women. The paper evaluates the two films as responses to these debates by filmmakers committed to giving voice to black women.
- In Atlantic Studies (online version,) 2/28/17.
This paper reflects on the impact of West Indian immigrants on the social and cultural dynamics o... more This paper reflects on the impact of West Indian immigrants on the social and cultural dynamics of London in the period 1948 – 2001 and explores the notion of “colonization in reverse,” first expressed by Louise Bennett in her 1959 poem of the same title. Evidence of the impact of the West Indian presence on youth cultures and race relations in London is drawn from literature, notably Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), from sociological and cultural studies of the period as well as from the sequence of political crises beginning with Notting Hill Riots of 1959. The Brixton and Tottenham riots of 1981 focused attention on police harassment of black youth in London and on the discontent of black people in poor boroughs in the city; however, this paper proposes that the narrative of “riotous/unruly inner city black youth” that is concretized in this period obscures the ongoing process of creolization that begins in the 1950s and whose most eloquent document to date is Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2001).
Published in Caribbean Quarterly, Vol 56, no.4 (December 2015)
Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music, brings together current wor... more Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music, brings together current work by transnational scholars that addresses the global reverberations and influence of music created and performed by Caribbean women. The chapters examine their interventions in transnational feminist/womanist conversations on gender relations, sexuality, race and national identities. The essays in the collection span the Caribbean and its diasporas, accenting both relation and diversity, to include writing on artists from Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and The United States.
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2003
... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wi... more ... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wished I could answer, for myself as well as for him. ... [End Page 150]. "That is Ganesh," Shireen whispers, "our god of luck and prosperity.". We sit on cushions on the floor, awaiting the astrologer. ...
African American Studies Center, Jun 1, 2016
African American Studies Center, Jun 1, 2016
Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, 2005
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, Mar 1, 2003
... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wi... more ... "And the rest of your life? Will it be here, in England?". That was a question I wished I could answer, for myself as well as for him. ... [End Page 150]. "That is Ganesh," Shireen whispers, "our god of luck and prosperity.". We sit on cushions on the floor, awaiting the astrologer. ...
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Cambridge University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2020
Caribbean Quarterly, 2015
Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the ver... more Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the very sign of that change. In creolisation, you can change, you can be with the Other, you can change with the Other while being yourself, you are not one, you are multiple . . .- Edouard GlissantIN THE AFTERMATH OF THE LONDON RIOTS of August 2011, British historian David Starkey provoked a storm of public outrage when, in a discussion on BBC Television on the cause of the riots, he stated that "the problem is that whites have become black . . . What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs have become black."1 Starkey's comment was condemned by black and white pundits alike, primarily because his attempt to explain the participation of white youths - "chavs" - in the rioting and looting invoked racist stereotypes of unruly/riotous black youth.2 Furthermore, Starkey's reference to chavs, a white, urban working-class subculture whose male members adopt so-called gangster fashions and street slang, also invokes the menacing, stereotypical spectre of black male criminality, thought to influence the style and behaviours of chavs.Louise Bennett's poem "Colonization in Reverse", written in the 1950s, commented satirically and prophetically on the influential presence of West Indians who emigrated to Britain in the years following the end of World War II.3 Her observations in this poem anticipated Starkey's remarks by several decades. This essay, focusing on literary representations of West Indians in London, examines the implications of the surprising convergence of views expressed by Starkey and by Bennett, specifically their allusions to what Starkey described as the "blackening" of white Britons, and what Bennett described as "colonization in reverse".Under consideration is the high period of twentieth-century West Indian immigration, bracketed in the West Indian literature of immigration by Samuel Selvon's 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners4 and Zadie Smith's 2001 novel White Teeth.5 In the intervening forty-five years, a canon of West Indian writing, as well as other creative expressions, emerged, with representations of immigration experiences that included arrival, the embattled process of settlement and the struggle for social acceptance, and the particular challenges of the second generation.Drawing on representations of relations between West Indian immigrants and British natives in literature published in the latter half of the twentieth century, this essay focuses on two broad phases of West Indian immigration, settlement, and social interaction with Britons in London, and comments on developments that would support Starkey's and Bennett's claims. The first period spans 1948, the year the passenger ship the HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Southampton, to 1981, the year of the Brixton and Tottenham uprisings, which marked a turning point in black politics in London and in the country as a whole. In the phase that followed, 1981-2001, black identities forged in the preceding decades by the processes of settlement, adaptation and inter-racial relationships - identities categorised by Stuart Hall as new ethnicities - emerged, to be embraced and consolidated by some second-, thirdand even first-generation West Indians, or rejected by others who cleaved to a remembered, rather than lived West Indianness.6To elucidate observations derived from the creative literature, this essay also draws on contemporaneous criticism produced by British scholars in the disciplines of cultural studies and postcolonial studies, as well as migration studies, and on theories of creolisation from the disciplines of sociology and history.The postwar periodThe first wave of West Indian migrants comprised predominantly young men escaping economic hardship at home by responding to the promise of jobs in the postwar reconstruction of London. But by the late 1950s, women were arriving in increasingly greater numbers to take jobs in the new National Health Service hospitals and on London transport. …
Caribbean Quarterly, 2015
Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the ver... more Now I think that being is in a state of perpetual change. And what I call creolisation is the very sign of that change. In creolisation, you can change, you can be with the Other, you can change with the Other while being yourself, you are not one, you are multiple . . .- Edouard GlissantIN THE AFTERMATH OF THE LONDON RIOTS of August 2011, British historian David Starkey provoked a storm of public outrage when, in a discussion on BBC Television on the cause of the riots, he stated that "the problem is that whites have become black . . . What has happened is that a substantial section of the chavs have become black."1 Starkey's comment was condemned by black and white pundits alike, primarily because his attempt to explain the participation of white youths - "chavs" - in the rioting and looting invoked racist stereotypes of unruly/riotous black youth.2 Furthermore, Starkey's reference to chavs, a white, urban working-class subculture whose male members adopt so-called gangster fashions and street slang, also invokes the menacing, stereotypical spectre of black male criminality, thought to influence the style and behaviours of chavs.Louise Bennett's poem "Colonization in Reverse", written in the 1950s, commented satirically and prophetically on the influential presence of West Indians who emigrated to Britain in the years following the end of World War II.3 Her observations in this poem anticipated Starkey's remarks by several decades. This essay, focusing on literary representations of West Indians in London, examines the implications of the surprising convergence of views expressed by Starkey and by Bennett, specifically their allusions to what Starkey described as the "blackening" of white Britons, and what Bennett described as "colonization in reverse".Under consideration is the high period of twentieth-century West Indian immigration, bracketed in the West Indian literature of immigration by Samuel Selvon's 1956 novel The Lonely Londoners4 and Zadie Smith's 2001 novel White Teeth.5 In the intervening forty-five years, a canon of West Indian writing, as well as other creative expressions, emerged, with representations of immigration experiences that included arrival, the embattled process of settlement and the struggle for social acceptance, and the particular challenges of the second generation.Drawing on representations of relations between West Indian immigrants and British natives in literature published in the latter half of the twentieth century, this essay focuses on two broad phases of West Indian immigration, settlement, and social interaction with Britons in London, and comments on developments that would support Starkey's and Bennett's claims. The first period spans 1948, the year the passenger ship the HMT Empire Windrush arrived at Southampton, to 1981, the year of the Brixton and Tottenham uprisings, which marked a turning point in black politics in London and in the country as a whole. In the phase that followed, 1981-2001, black identities forged in the preceding decades by the processes of settlement, adaptation and inter-racial relationships - identities categorised by Stuart Hall as new ethnicities - emerged, to be embraced and consolidated by some second-, thirdand even first-generation West Indians, or rejected by others who cleaved to a remembered, rather than lived West Indianness.6To elucidate observations derived from the creative literature, this essay also draws on contemporaneous criticism produced by British scholars in the disciplines of cultural studies and postcolonial studies, as well as migration studies, and on theories of creolisation from the disciplines of sociology and history.The postwar periodThe first wave of West Indian migrants comprised predominantly young men escaping economic hardship at home by responding to the promise of jobs in the postwar reconstruction of London. But by the late 1950s, women were arriving in increasingly greater numbers to take jobs in the new National Health Service hospitals and on London transport. …
Atlantic Studies, 2017
ABSTRACT This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handswo... more ABSTRACT This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs, Twilight City, and Dreaming Rivers by the black British film collectives Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa, respectively. Black Audio and Sankofa emerged in the mid-1980s as activists and innovators in the fields of video and film arts. Formed by male and female filmmakers of African, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian descent, they were born out of the struggles waged by black Britons in the 1980s to shape a new cultural politics and a new politics of representation. An important stage in the ongoing struggle to gain acknowledgement of diversity within “the black British experience,” and to gain control over representations of that diversity, was that of breaking the historic silence of black British women of Caribbean origins. As a result of the new cultural politics, and for the first time, black women artists gained the means to give voice to their experience and their concerns through the medium of film. At a moment when debates on representation necessarily provoked questions of racial, national, ethnic, and individual identity, the impact of migration on black women’s identity formation became a pressing concern, if not to the community as a whole, then certainly to the women. The paper evaluates the two films as responses to these debates by filmmakers committed to giving voice to black women.
Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 2005
... 22. Alison Donnell reviews the critical response to this text in "She Ties Her Tongue: T... more ... 22. Alison Donnell reviews the critical response to this text in "She Ties Her Tongue: The Problems of Cultural Paralysis in Postcolonial Criticism," Ariel 26, no. ... Verna Aardema, Ananci Does the Impossible! (New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1997). ...
Anthurium a Caribbean Studies Journal, 2005
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2011
This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs... more This paper discusses representations of immigrant West Indian women in the films Handsworth Songs, Twilight City, and Dreaming Rivers by the black British film collectives Black Audio Film Collective and Sankofa, respectively. Black Audio and Sankofa emerged in the mid-1980s as activists and innovators in the fields of video and film arts. Formed by male and female filmmakers of African, Afro-Caribbean, and South Asian descent, they were born out of the struggles waged by black Britons in the 1980s to shape a new cultural politics and a new politics of representation. An important stage in the ongoing struggle to gain acknowledgement of diversity within " the black British experience, " and to gain control over representations of that diversity, was that of breaking the historic silence of black British women of Caribbean origins. As a result of the new cultural politics, and for the first time, black women artists gained the means to give voice to their experience and their concerns through the medium of film. At a moment when debates on representation necessarily provoked questions of racial, national, ethnic, and individual identity, the impact of migration on black women's identity formation became a pressing concern, if not to the community as a whole, then certainly to the women. The paper evaluates the two films as responses to these debates by filmmakers committed to giving voice to black women.
- In Atlantic Studies (online version,) 2/28/17.
This paper reflects on the impact of West Indian immigrants on the social and cultural dynamics o... more This paper reflects on the impact of West Indian immigrants on the social and cultural dynamics of London in the period 1948 – 2001 and explores the notion of “colonization in reverse,” first expressed by Louise Bennett in her 1959 poem of the same title. Evidence of the impact of the West Indian presence on youth cultures and race relations in London is drawn from literature, notably Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), from sociological and cultural studies of the period as well as from the sequence of political crises beginning with Notting Hill Riots of 1959. The Brixton and Tottenham riots of 1981 focused attention on police harassment of black youth in London and on the discontent of black people in poor boroughs in the city; however, this paper proposes that the narrative of “riotous/unruly inner city black youth” that is concretized in this period obscures the ongoing process of creolization that begins in the 1950s and whose most eloquent document to date is Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2001).
Published in Caribbean Quarterly, Vol 56, no.4 (December 2015)
Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music, brings together current wor... more Archipelagos of Sound: Transnational Caribbeanities, Women and Music, brings together current work by transnational scholars that addresses the global reverberations and influence of music created and performed by Caribbean women. The chapters examine their interventions in transnational feminist/womanist conversations on gender relations, sexuality, race and national identities. The essays in the collection span the Caribbean and its diasporas, accenting both relation and diversity, to include writing on artists from Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and The United States.
