Black Jacobins Research Articles

A Singular Enlightenment: C. L. R. James, Anti-Colonialism, and Transatlantic Political Thought

This article formulates an original account of the Enlightenment through an interpretation of C. L. R. James’s The Black Jacobins, a landmark work of transatlantic anti-colonial thought. It defends a dialectical account of the Enlightenment as a singular transatlantic historical process whose content and critical import changes across space and time. In The Black Jacobins, James shows the Enlightenment’s revolutionary and emancipatory political legacy by staging the dialectic of the Enlightenment in a colonial situation defined by a slave-plantation economy. James illustrates the Enlightenment’s political legacy as a “concrete universal” that has particular and singular aspects, each with its own unique contours. In doing so, the article considers other themes at the center of both historical and contemporary political theory such as how to best conceptualize colonialism; the traveling and misplacement of Enlightened ideas; and the critical importance of the dialectical legacy and critical theory in these efforts.

Nectar availability and Interactions with Bird Pollinators in Grevillea banksii R. Br. (Proteaceae) in a Restinga Ecosystem in Southeastern Brazil

The mutualistic relationship between plants and their pollinators may influence species’ spatial distribution, richness, and abundance. We assessed the nectar availability and interaction with pollinators in Grevillea banksii (Proteaceae), an alien plant in Brazil. Our objectives were to study the floral biology and the pollination system and identify the pollinators in a G. banksii population in a Restinga ecosystem (sand-coastal-plain) in southeastern Brazil. We described the behavioral parameters of the pollinator-plant interaction and determined how the pollinators contribute to reproduction. Floral biology was analyzed by taking morphometric measurements of the flowers and determining the distribution of their structures. The reproductive system was assessed via different pollination treatments (open pollination, self-pollination, manual selfpollination, manual cross-pollination). The pollinators were identified and their behaviors were assessed by focal observation. Flower morphometrics showed compatibility between the mean calyx length and the beak length of the flower-visiting hummingbirds. All the pollination types tested were efficient, and we identified eight bird species (Chionomesa fimbriata, Eupetomena macroura, Chlorestes notata, Polytmus guainumbi, Florisuga fusca, Coereba flaveola, Cyanerpes cyaneus and Dacnis cayana) that visit G. banksii in the study area. The results show a positive interaction between pollinators and plants, with offers of resources, pollination, and pollen dispersal.

Testosterone treatment unveils testosterone-insensitive song in an early-branched hummingbird

Birdsong often plays a crucial role in sexual behavior, including territorial defense and mate attraction. This behavior is particularly well studied in species in which only males sing and respond to gonadal testosterone depending on the breeding season. Although hummingbirds are long known to sing in a breeding context, the sensitivity of these vocalizations to testosterone in both sexes remains unknown. Therefore, we investigated (i) which vocalizations are emitted during their breeding season, (ii) the testosterone levels in free-ranging birds, and (iii) the effect of testosterone on these vocalizations in a semi-natural environment in both sexes of the black jacobin (Florisuga fusca), an early-branched hummingbird. Females and males of black jacobin produced the same set of vocalizations (high-pitched song and chirp call) at a similar rate during the breeding season, although testosterone levels in males were significantly higher. Testosterone treatment did not affect the vocal activity or acoustic parameters of their song in both sexes. However, testosterone maintained high levels of aggression in treated birds of both sexes and hyper-developed the oviduct of females. In contrast to almost all well-studied bird species studied so far, the vocal behavior of the black jacobins in their breeding season seems to be insensitive to high testosterone levels.

“The Very Valley of the Shadow of Death”

AbstractThis essay explores the Black Trinidadian revolutionary historian C. L. R. James’s little-theorized engagement with questions of the environment and natural world from the 1930s to the 1980s, situating this within his wider oeuvre as a Marxist who not only experienced colonial domination in the Caribbean but also witnessed other catastrophes endemic to twentieth-century capitalism, from the Great War to the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the Holocaust, the Second World War, and then the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The essay first examines how James might be seen to have helped inspire contemporary theorizing around the “plantationocene” in his classic history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins (1938). As early as 1951, James (and his fellow thinkers) noted: “It is not the world of nature that confronts man as an alien power to be overcome. It is the alien power that he has himself created.” The choice ahead, for James, was one of socialism or barbarism, rebellion or extinction. In 1958, evoking biblical language and imagery, he noted that we are already entering “the very valley of the shadow of death.”

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Making The Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and the Drama of History by Rachel Douglas (review)

Making The Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and the Drama of History by Rachel Douglas (review)

From David Walker to John Chilembwe: Global Black Collectivity as Resisting Race and Affirming Culture

ABSTRACT Western notions of race have never been for us. Yet culture has historically functioned as an “insider” discourse, representing our ways of living, knowing, and communing with one another. How, then, might Black folks remain mindful in our treatments of race and culture, ever cognizant of how we wield these constructs to our collective global advantage? In this essay, I reflect on how three Africana historical figures have engaged this question: (1) David Walker, whose sense of literacy in Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World centered free and enslaved Black audiences as cultural “insiders,” (2) C.L.R. James, whose evolving sense of collective Black identity prompted him to write texts such as The Black Jacobins, a Black-centered interpretation of the Haitian Revolution, and (3) Reverend John Chilembwe, whose Africana global alliances and literacy-based leadership ignited the Nyasaland Uprising against colonial oppression in Malawi. I argue that these three figures resisted race by affirming global Black collectivity as a cultural homeplace, thus informing how we may theorize and practice Black rhetorical studies today.

What Was Tragedy during the Haitian Revolution?

AbstractContemporary actors and, later, historians and critics have long compared the Haitian Revolution to a tragic play. But the model of tragedy they invoke has changed over time. Today the best-known example comes from The Black Jacobins (1963), in which C. L. R. James narrates the events of the Revolution through the lens of a Hegelian definition of tragedy. David Scott has championed James’s “tragic mode of history” for political reasons, arguing that it is better suited to address the challenges of the postcolonial present. But a tragic mode of history can be of use for the postcolonial present only if it is firmly grounded in the world-changing events that it is supposed to illuminate. It should build on what tragedy was in the milieu of Toussaint Louverture and the slave rebels. To lay the groundwork for this critical shift, this essay traces how tragic performances and history intersected during the Revolution and shows how radicalized versions of Voltaire’s Roman-themed tragedies and Afro-Caribbean mythology and rituals played a prominent part in the fight for equality.

Window Collisions by Birds in Brazil: Epidemiologic Factors and Radiographic and Necropsy Assessments.

Birds are among the most visually proficient group of animals on the planet; however, their inability to visualize and discriminate translucent glass structures results in an extreme number of deaths worldwide from high-speed collisions. Despite reports of avian glass collisions in North America, only a few studies have been developed to understand this problem in South America, and none evaluated radiographic and postmortem findings. One hundred cadavers were examined radiographically and postmortem, and data from 186 collision reports were analyzed for seasonality (website and manual reports and cadavers). A total of 34 different species of birds within 22 families were evaluated for this study, with the rufous-bellied thrush (Turdus rufiventris; n = 12), eared dove (Zenaida auriculata; n = 12), and ruddy ground dove (Columbina talpacoti; n = 10) being the most common species. Only 6 (27.7%) migratory species were reported: Sick's swift (Chaetura meridionalis), small-billed elaenia (Elaenia parvirostris), Black Jacobin (Florisuga fusca), Great kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus), Double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens), and Creamy-bellied thrush (Turdus amaurochalinus). Males (51) were more frequently reported than females (5), and 50.1% of the males had active gonads. Sex was unable to be determined in 44 birds. The most common radiographic lesion, noted in 16 of 82 (19.5%) animals, was loss of coelomic definition, suggestive of hemorrhage. Prevalent postmortem findings included skull hemorrhages (58/75, 77.3%) and encephalic contusions (47/73, 64.4%), followed by coelomic hemorrhages (33/81, 40.7%). Most of the window collisions (61/186, 32.8%) occurred during spring, the most common breeding season of avian species in Brazil. Cranioencephalic trauma was identified as the primary cause of mortality associated with birds flying into glass windows. Migration does not appear to be the main predisposing factor for window collisions by birds in Brazil. Increased activity and aggression related to breeding season, especially in males, may be a more important predisposing factor for window collision accidents.

Entangled Caribbean rewriting, C.L.R. James, Aimé Césaire, and their books as postcolonial lieux de mémoire

This article argues that books such as C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins (1938) and Aimé Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (1939) can be important postcolonial lieux de mémoire (sites or realms of memory). Examining where memory is crystallized in book form, the article explores the entangled genealogies and rewriting of both key Caribbean works. Both James’s history and Césaire’s poem were rewritten repeatedly over the decades. My argument is that these two Caribbean foundation stones are themselves key Caribbean sites of memory in their own right. Césaire’s Cahier becomes a crucial new element in James’s rewritten history. The article tracks the ongoing and layered process of memory as palimpsest through which James’s 1963 revised edition of The Black Jacobins is itself constituted. James’s creative translation and ‘misreading’ of Césaire’s poem is analysed as the means through which the Trinidadian Marxist makes the poem his own. This article explores a range of postcolonial memory sites including the 1968 Cultural Congress in Havana, Cuba, where both writers met, and the 1969 London performance of Cahier readings. Finally, the article considers the writers’ gravestones to see how the writers’ words have been used to memorialize James, Césaire, and their writing.

Hummingbird (Aves: Trochilidae) assemblage using resources from the exotic African tuliptree, Spathodea campanulata (Bignoniaceae) in a Neotropical altered environment, southeastern Brazil.

The non-native African tuliptree, Spathodea campanulata (P. Beauv), is widely distributed in altered Neotropical environments, where hummingbirds are important pollinators. We investigated the assemblage of hummingbirds which fed on its nectar and described their behavior, to understand possible influences of the exotic tree on the territorial behavior in an altered environment in southeastern Brazil. Seven species fed on flower resources, mainly Eupetomena macroura (Gmelin, 1788), Amazilia lactea (Lesson, 1832), and Florisuga fusca (Vieillot, 1817). Visiting time was positive correlated with number of flowers accessed, but in most visits, hummingbirds get the nectar by pillage, instead of frontal access. Flower availability varied throughout months; however, we found no evidence of significative correlation between available flowers and number of agonistic encounters. Despite a high number of animal-plant interactions and a strong territorialism of some species observed in African tuliptree foraging site, there may be other plants at local scale influencing the behavioral patterns observed.

Making The Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and the Drama of History, by Rachel Douglas

Making The Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and the Drama of History, by Rachel Douglas

Unsilencing the Haitian Revolution: C. L. R. James and The Black Jacobins

ABSTRACT Exploring the genesis, transformation and afterlives of The Black Jacobins, this article follows the revision trail of James’s evolving interest in Toussaint Louverture. How does James “show” as drama versus “tell” as history? Building on Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s idea of “silencing the past,” this article argues that James engages in an equally active and transitive reverse process of unsilencing the past. James’s own unsilencing of certain negative representations of the Haitian Revolution is evaluated, as is James’s move away from presenting the colonized as passive objects, instead turning them instead into active subjects. James should be recognized as a precursor to “history from below.” It uncovers James’s “writing in” of more popular leaders, masses and Haitian crowd scenes, of whom there is little archival trace. James’s own making of The Black Jacobins over nearly sixty years is linked to the process of rasanblaj (re-assembly, gathering) and the search for Caribbean identity.

Making ‘The Black Jacobins’: C. L. R. James and the Drama of History. By Rachel Douglas

Making ‘The Black Jacobins’: C. L. R. James and the Drama of History. By Rachel Douglas Making ‘The Black Jacobins’: C. L. R. James and the Drama of History. By Rachel Douglas. (The C. L. R. James Archives.) Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019. xii + 306 pp., ill. Raphael Hoermann Raphael Hoermann University of Central Lancashire Rhoermann@uclan.ac.uk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar French Studies, Volume 74, Issue 4, October 2020, Pages 647–648, https://doi.org/10.1093/fs/knaa158 Published: 06 October 2020

The hummingbird syrinx morphome: a detailed three-dimensional description of the black jacobin\u2019s vocal organ

BackgroundThe ability to imitate sounds depends on a process called vocal production learning, a rare evolutionary trait. In addition to the few mammalian groups that possess this ability, vocal production learning has evolved independently in three avian clades: songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Although the anatomy and mechanisms of sound production in songbirds are well understood, little is known about the hummingbird’s vocal anatomy.ResultsWe use high-resolution micro-computed tomography (μCT) and microdissection to reveal the three-dimensional structure of the syrinx, the vocal organ of the black jacobin (Florisuga fusca), a phylogenetically basal hummingbird species. We identify three features of the black jacobin’s syrinx: (i) a shift in the position of the syrinx to the outside of the thoracic cavity and the related loss of the sterno-tracheal muscle, (ii) complex intrinsic musculature, oriented dorso-ventrally, and (iii) ossicles embedded in the medial vibratory membranes.ConclusionsThe extra-thoracic placement of the black jacobin’s syrinx and the dorso-ventrally oriented musculature likely aid to uncoupling syrinx movements from extensive flight-related thorax constraints. The syrinx morphology further allows for vibratory decoupling, precise control of complex acoustic parameters, and a large motor redundancy that may be key biomechanical factors leading to acoustic complexity and thus facilitating the occurrence of vocal production learning.

Thinking the Future through Blackness

Thinking the Future through Blackness

Centralism is a Dangerous Tool

This essay seeks to bring into focus the latent political theory of CLR James’s World Revolution, 1917-1936, and to show, on this basis, how World Revolution explains certain difficult aspects of The Black Jacobins. The core of James’s theory is the thesis that social classes are organically and internally identified, and that each has a preformed and unitary interest, which can be articulated as a set of political principles. A class is called to act by the voice that expresses the class’s interest in the terms of its political principles. Once these points are made clear, several problems regarding the interpretation of The Black Jacobins disappear. First, James’s claim that the slaves of San Domingo were “closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time” follows from his organic concept of the proletariat. Second, James’s revision of his account of the Haitian Revolution over the decades does not signify a move in the direction of “history from below” but a changed estimation of the conditions under which the mirroring operation he assigned to political leadership might take place. What seems to be James’s inordinate interest in the individual leader, finally, is more properly understood to be his antipathy to institutions and organizations.

Book Review: Making of the Black Jacobins: C.L.R. James and the Drama of History by Rachel Douglas

Cyril Lionel Robert James (C.L.R. James), a West Indian native born on the cusp of the twentieth century, grew to adhere to the political and social ideology of Karl Marx. The United States had already considered Communism a revolutionary ideology as it had a subtle stronghold among black intellectuals such as W.E.B. DuBois. Thus, these two revolutionaries' philosophies converged into the same goal, to liberate a people from systemic oppression. These were two astounding individuals; one Black American who graduated from an Ivy League university and asserted that the improvement of Blacks could only be achieved by the “talented 10th,” while James, a Trinidadian born playwright, understood that revolution was not silent nor accomplished by using the established framework of the very society with a long-standing history of subjugation and tyranny.

Peril and Possibility

In a 2012 review article, Anthony P. Maingot made a case for each generation rewriting history according to its own needs and preoccupations. Everyone, he suggested, has their own C.L.R. James. Everyone, perhaps, except students of international relations (IR) and international history, where references to James’s copious and critical body of work are less common. In the spirit of finding one’s own James, this article employs The Black Jacobins and James’s other magnum opus, World Revolution,1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International, to think historically about two interrelated processes of the twentieth century: the rise of the state, and the relationship between nationalisms and internationalisms. Along with encounters with revolutionary Marxism and pan-Africanism, James bore witness to the challenges of the state, and the tensions between nationalism and internationalism that were so central to understanding the twentieth century.

Globalising the Haitian Revolution in Black Paris: C.L.R. James, Metropolitan Anti-imperialism in Interwar France and the Writing of The Black Jacobins

ABSTRACT This article will focus on the black Trinidadian Marxist historian C.L.R. James and how his exposure to French as part of his colonial education and sojourns and researches in interwar France shaped the writing of his anti-colonial classic, the monumental account of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins (1938), which not only helped ‘globalise’ that revolution but also the French Revolution. Much of James’s archival research was undertaken in France, yet James also engaged with contemporary French revolutionary historiography and metropolitan anti-imperialism in ‘Black Paris’ outside of the archives, and he met many critical Francophone Pan-Africanist figures including Léon-Gontran Damas, Tiémoko Garan Kouyaté and Auguste Nemours. This article will explore such intellectual relationships and Pan-Africanist networks and examine how they illuminate wider issues relating to empire, race and resistance in France during the 1930s, amidst a context of economic crisis and the rise of the ‘Popular Front’ government.