RHETOR 103B Lecture 15: R103B Lecture 15 03.09.2017
Document Summary
Communicate large stake of this work to non-historians. Making a homogenous group out of a heterogeneous mass. Pay attention: not everything the subaltern says is comprehensible to the scholar. We tend to use own assumptions to understand the sensibilities and experience of the subaltern. Need to see distinct aspirations and notions of justice. Goal of any emancipatory activity as liberating. Wj does not give a straight answer. To think of justice, think of horror (justice arising from conditions of horror) Subfield in history - new social history (new historians) These scholars want to recover agency of slaves. Wj responds: assumption of humanity inherency in scholars" argument above. Assumption of what a human is: not thinking about the slaves; slaves may have another vision of humanity. Context is missing; not take into account their experiences. By arguing slaves had agency, adopting liberal conception of self-determinacy and autonomy. Paradox: slavery was the very stripping away of free choice.
