(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)Western logic calls for and relies on a mechanics of solids. fluid will always spill over into reason, ratio, go beyond measure, plunge back into the undifferentiated: a universe of myths and magic . . . Without the intervention of fluids, no discourse would hold together . . . economy of flows obliges us to re-evaluate what has been determined as subject.-Luce Irigaray, The Language of ManYou are the one who needs to be opened up again.-Luce Irigaray, Elemental PassionsSCHOLARS, ARTISTS, AND ACTIVISTS CONCERNED WITH CARIBBEAN Culture have long noted and sought to render transparent the region's ongoing emplotment within a historical imaginary rooted in a succession of structural and theoretical paradoxes. Since the Age of Enlightenment, modalities in the region have been tangibly enmeshed within a system of relational paradigms that Latin American studies scholar Paul B. Miller describes as a binary trap, constituting relationships such as centre/periphery, master/slave, leaders/ masses.1 Looking back across the history of the Caribbean and the phenomenon of colonisation and racialised slavery demands serious consideration of these philosophical antinomies, which on the one hand posited the universal desirability of the individuated and propertied subject while on the other rigorously and systematically encoded the otherness' of those who were not European, not white, and/or not male. As postcolonial and woman-of-colour feminist studies have demonstrated, these historic constructions - often theorised as a subject/object split - continue to have currency in today's postmodern, global world. desire to dissolve individuated subjecthood and hegemonic structures of logic that have pervaded Western thought constitutes the philosophical impulse of Trinidadian-born Marlene NourbeSe Philip's 2008 poem sequence Zong!1 Returning to the catastrophic incident of the Zong slave ship massacre of 1781, the poems work to engage, disassemble, and reconstitute an archive that challenges Western colonial perspectives and values. Speaking back to dominant narratives, the poems 'signify' on a 1783 legal decision, visibly shattering the account that documents the mass drowning of the ship's 'cargo' off the coast of Suriname two years prior. Philip perceives language and discourse as contaminated and tainted.? Zong! challenges readers to consider not only how colonial projects have played out on a level of narrative historically, but also the extent to which language continues to be deployed to advance hegemonic epistemological formations that render alternative racialised and gendered knowledges both invisible and immaterial to development and progress. At the heart of Philip's project is the contention that culture, in the form of transformative reading practices, is essential to the processes of deconstruction that are central to anti-colonial politics.The incident of the Zong slave ship massacre is well known to historians of the transatlantic slave trade.4 In 1781, the vessel sailed from West Africa with a cargo of almost five hundred enslaved people, bound for Jamaica. It was later claimed that the voyage became imperilled due to a navigational error, leaving the ship both behind schedule and low on basic supplies. While the facts of the event remain unclear, what is certain is that upward of a hundred and thirty enslaved people were, over the course of three days, forced overboard on the orders of the ship's captain, Luke Collingwood, apparently under the assumption that the vessel's owners, Liverpool's William Gregson slave-trading syndicate, would be compensated by their insurers, Gilbert, for losses incurred; £30 per head being the standard rate. As historian James Walvin notes, the legal saga and haggling over compensation that ensued, although unusual, was viewed at the time quite simply as a matter of maritime insurance.? initial court hearing, presided over by Lord Mansfield and Justices Wills and Buller, found in favour of the syndicate and ordered the underwriters to make good on the policy, a decision that was later challenged. …