Esther Lezra | University of California, Santa Barbara (original) (raw)

Papers by Esther Lezra

Kalfou, 2020

The Black Atlantic creation of alternative archives illustrated in Parisa Urquhart’s 2019 documen... more The Black Atlantic creation of alternative archives illustrated in Parisa Urquhart’s 2019 documentary Strike for Freedom, which chronicles the unveiling of a historical plaque in Edinburgh to commemorate Frederick Douglass’s activism while he was in exile in Scotland, has a long and meaningful history. People without control over—or even access to—papers of state, conquerors’ memoirs, or officially commissioned histories have carried out the work of recovering, remembering, and reimagining the past through creative deployment of the meager tools at their disposal: stories, songs, and other forms of expressive culture and decoration, including three-dimensional artifacts of material culture such as medallions, buttons, drums, coins, statues, and Masonic aprons. In this article, we survey past and present manifestations of countermemory, place making, and place marking to locate Strike for Freedom within a larger story of oppositional countermemory.

Routledge eBooks, May 5, 2023

Journal of American Studies, 2015

In the mid-1700s, when Denis Diderot wroteLes bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nation-state w... more In the mid-1700s, when Denis Diderot wroteLes bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nation-state was being actively imagined through philosophical and revolutionary discourse as distinct from the monarchical and feudal structures of theancien régime. At the core of the emerging, transformative vision of Enlightenment thought lay knowledge produced by colonial and enslaved peoples, symbolized in the black female body that is positioned in Diderot's novel as disruptive of and yet central to European social, economic, and cultural norms.

the colonial art of demonizing others a global perspective are a good way to achieve details abou... more the colonial art of demonizing others a global perspective are a good way to achieve details about operating certainproducts. Many products that you buy can be obtained using instruction manuals. These user guides are clearlybuilt to give step-by-step information about how you ought to go ahead in operating certain equipments. Ahandbook is really a user's guide to operating the equipments. Should you loose your best guide or even the productwould not provide an instructions, you can easily obtain one on the net. You can search for the manual of yourchoice online. Here, it is possible to work with google to browse through the available user guide and find the mainone you'll need. On the net, you'll be able to discover the manual that you might want with great ease andsimplicity

What tools do cultural interventions offer us to face and speak back to the horrors of a colonial... more What tools do cultural interventions offer us to face and speak back to the horrors of a colonial archive that continues to grow and expand in its mechanisms of dehumanizing and silencing the populations it targets? How do we respond to a horizon of reality that seems surreal? What weapons do we have left to fight or speak back when we know that the walking and living archive—officers, policymakers, schoolteachers, corporate investors, and the people successfully disciplined by them—denies the lives of the people who tirelessly labor for it? Facts, research, and logical argument barely hold up against the almost surreal arsenal of deliberately woven lies and institutional racism we face. This article briefly analyzes three discrete responses linked by unfathomable horror, beauty, and anger (a song, a cry of rage, and a sacrificial act of self-assertion) to the horrors of anti-Black brutality.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies

Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, Oct 20, 2014

In the mid-s, when Denis Diderot wrote Les bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nationstate w... more In the mid-s, when Denis Diderot wrote Les bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nationstate was being actively imagined through philosophical and revolutionary discourse as distinct from the monarchical and feudal structures of the ancien régime. At the core of the emerging, transformative vision of Enlightenment thought lay knowledge produced by colonial and enslaved peoples, symbolized in the black female body that is positioned in Diderot's novel as disruptive of and yet central to European social, economic, and cultural norms.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2014

Books by Esther Lezra

This book offers and enacts a mode of reading that exposes fragments of an initially inchoate tra... more This book offers and enacts a mode of reading that exposes fragments of an initially inchoate transatlantic narrative of endurance, struggle and humanity within the multilingual archive and genocidal practices of the colonizers. I work with an expansive understanding of the archive, including in it literary writings, colonial administrative documents, political writings, and works of visual culture.

Kalfou, 2020

The Black Atlantic creation of alternative archives illustrated in Parisa Urquhart’s 2019 documen... more The Black Atlantic creation of alternative archives illustrated in Parisa Urquhart’s 2019 documentary Strike for Freedom, which chronicles the unveiling of a historical plaque in Edinburgh to commemorate Frederick Douglass’s activism while he was in exile in Scotland, has a long and meaningful history. People without control over—or even access to—papers of state, conquerors’ memoirs, or officially commissioned histories have carried out the work of recovering, remembering, and reimagining the past through creative deployment of the meager tools at their disposal: stories, songs, and other forms of expressive culture and decoration, including three-dimensional artifacts of material culture such as medallions, buttons, drums, coins, statues, and Masonic aprons. In this article, we survey past and present manifestations of countermemory, place making, and place marking to locate Strike for Freedom within a larger story of oppositional countermemory.

Routledge eBooks, May 5, 2023

Journal of American Studies, 2015

In the mid-1700s, when Denis Diderot wroteLes bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nation-state w... more In the mid-1700s, when Denis Diderot wroteLes bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nation-state was being actively imagined through philosophical and revolutionary discourse as distinct from the monarchical and feudal structures of theancien régime. At the core of the emerging, transformative vision of Enlightenment thought lay knowledge produced by colonial and enslaved peoples, symbolized in the black female body that is positioned in Diderot's novel as disruptive of and yet central to European social, economic, and cultural norms.

the colonial art of demonizing others a global perspective are a good way to achieve details abou... more the colonial art of demonizing others a global perspective are a good way to achieve details about operating certainproducts. Many products that you buy can be obtained using instruction manuals. These user guides are clearlybuilt to give step-by-step information about how you ought to go ahead in operating certain equipments. Ahandbook is really a user's guide to operating the equipments. Should you loose your best guide or even the productwould not provide an instructions, you can easily obtain one on the net. You can search for the manual of yourchoice online. Here, it is possible to work with google to browse through the available user guide and find the mainone you'll need. On the net, you'll be able to discover the manual that you might want with great ease andsimplicity

What tools do cultural interventions offer us to face and speak back to the horrors of a colonial... more What tools do cultural interventions offer us to face and speak back to the horrors of a colonial archive that continues to grow and expand in its mechanisms of dehumanizing and silencing the populations it targets? How do we respond to a horizon of reality that seems surreal? What weapons do we have left to fight or speak back when we know that the walking and living archive—officers, policymakers, schoolteachers, corporate investors, and the people successfully disciplined by them—denies the lives of the people who tirelessly labor for it? Facts, research, and logical argument barely hold up against the almost surreal arsenal of deliberately woven lies and institutional racism we face. This article briefly analyzes three discrete responses linked by unfathomable horror, beauty, and anger (a song, a cry of rage, and a sacrificial act of self-assertion) to the horrors of anti-Black brutality.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies

Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, Oct 20, 2014

In the mid-s, when Denis Diderot wrote Les bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nationstate w... more In the mid-s, when Denis Diderot wrote Les bijoux indiscrets, the French modern nationstate was being actively imagined through philosophical and revolutionary discourse as distinct from the monarchical and feudal structures of the ancien régime. At the core of the emerging, transformative vision of Enlightenment thought lay knowledge produced by colonial and enslaved peoples, symbolized in the black female body that is positioned in Diderot's novel as disruptive of and yet central to European social, economic, and cultural norms.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2014

This book offers and enacts a mode of reading that exposes fragments of an initially inchoate tra... more This book offers and enacts a mode of reading that exposes fragments of an initially inchoate transatlantic narrative of endurance, struggle and humanity within the multilingual archive and genocidal practices of the colonizers. I work with an expansive understanding of the archive, including in it literary writings, colonial administrative documents, political writings, and works of visual culture.