Dignity amidst devastation: politics, aesthetics and the slave sublime

Burke, Kant, and Schiller used aesthetic categories to connect politics with ethical ideals of sympathy, dignity, and freedom. Although they extended these ideals to all human beings regardless of sex, color, or nation, this dissertation argues that representations of human difference in the realm of the aesthetic undermined the universal intent of their political philosophies. A new approach to aesthetics is needed in order to re-imagine difference from an ethical standpoint. This project identifies one such approach in selected works of art and literature by women from different parts of the African diaspora. In representing the dignity of women who were enslaved or colonized, these creative works revise our conceptions of political community, humanity, and the meaning of freedom.Ph.D.Includes abstractVitaIncludes bibliographical referencesby Wairmu R. Njoy