Moorings by Josiah Blackmore
How Africa was perceived in the early modern imaginary In this first book to study Portuguese texts about Africa, Moorings brings an important but little-known body of European writings to bear on contemporary colonial thought. Images of Africa as monstrous, dangerous, and lush were created in early Portuguese imperial writings and dominated its representation in European literature. Moorings establishes these key works in their proper place: foundational to Western imperial discourse. Attentive to history as well as the nuances of language, Josiah Blackmore leads readers from the formation of the “Moor” in medieval Iberia to the construction of a full colonial imaginary, as found in the works of two writers: the royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara and the epic poet Luís de Camões. Blackmore’s original work helps to explain how concepts and myths—such as the “otherness” of Africa and Africans—originated, functioned, and were perpetuated. Delving into the Portuguese imperial experience, Moorings enriches our understanding of historical and literary imagination during a significant period of Western expansion.Josiah Blackmore is professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Toronto. He is author of Manifest Perdition: Shipwreck Narrative and the Disruption of Empire (Minnesota, 2002) and editor of C. R. Boxer's Tragic History of the Sea (Minnesota, 2001).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780816648337 |
| ISBN 10 | 0816648336 |
| Title | Moorings |
| Author | Josiah Blackmore |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | University of Minnesota Press |
| Year published | 2008-12-26 |
| Number of pages | 224 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |