{"id":1971,"date":"2015-11-04T23:30:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T23:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/?p=1971"},"modified":"2017-05-24T17:34:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T17:34:41","slug":"edouard-glissant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/2015\/11\/04\/edouard-glissant\/","title":{"rendered":"Glissant, Edouard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Glissant\"<\/a>Edouard Glissant was born in Saint-Marie, Martinique in 1928 to a family of five children. His father was working as an agricultural manager, or \u2018g\u00e9reur d\u2019Habitation\u2019[1]<\/a>, and directly exposed the young Edward to the colonial reality. During childhood, he\u00a0moved to Lamentin, the second most populated city in Martinique, where Glissant discovered primary school and the strictness of the third republic school system, where children were forbidden to speak Creole. Being the brilliant student he was, Glissant received a scholarship in 1938, allowing him to attend the prestigious Schoelcher[2]<\/a> High School in Fort-de-France, the capital of Martinique, where the famous Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire<\/a>[3]<\/a> studied before him.<\/p>\n

In 1946, Glissant, determined to continue his studies, left his natal island for the first time and set out for Paris. There, he studied at La Sorbonne and bonded with several \u2018Antillais,\u2019 or West Indians, most notably Frantz Fanon. He graduated with a Bachelor\u2019s degree in philosophy and a graduate degree in ethnology under the supervision of French philosopher Jean Wahl. Upon his return to Martinique in 1953, he mainly published his works in the journal of a close friend, Maurice Nadeau, called Les<\/em> Lettres Nouvelles<\/em> (The New Arts).<\/p>\n

Glissant\u2019s popularity rose in 1958 when he published La L\u00e9zarde<\/em> (The Ripening) and won a prestigious French literary award, the Renaudot<\/em> Prize. With his literary career flourishing, the young writer chose to participate politically in the anti-colonialist movement, working\u00a0specifically withinin the black writers and artists movements. After this experience, Glissant founded Le Front Antillo-Guyanais<\/em> (The Antillean-Guyanese Front) with other writers, such as B\u00e9ville and Corsnay Marie-Joseph, and fought for the independence of the French West Indies and Guiana from France\u2019s rule. The difficult situation of 1961, notably the start of Algerian war of independence, commanded the dissolution of the group. By order of the French president, General De Gaulle, Glissant was arrested, forbidden to reside in the West Indies, and was sentenced to administrative detention in France until the situation in the colonies calmed down.<\/p>\n

In 1965, Glissant returned to Martinique and devoted his time to writing novels, poetry and plays. In 1981, he published one of his most famous essais, Le Discours Antillais, <\/em>in which Glissant discusses the Antillean reality from multiple approaches\u2014literary, sociological, historical, and anthropological. In the same year, he was appointed Director of the UNESCO Courier<\/em>, a magazine which publishes\u00a0current events\u00a0such as education, development, and climate change, and economic and political crises.<\/p>\n

1988 marked the beginning of his American career; Glissant accepted a distinguished professor position at Louisiana State University (LSU). Louisiana gave Glissant the opportunity to see the expansion of creole cultures in the United States. In 1990, he published his most recognized essay, Po\u00e8tique de la Relation <\/em>(Poetics of Relation), wherein his philosophy towards languages and cultures lies. In 1992, Glissant was chosen as finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature; unfortunately for him, the writer Derek Walcott<\/a> won by one vote. After this, Glissant moved to New York City, where he took a new position as chair of the French department at CUNY. Here, he received numerous Doctorat Honoris Causa from universities around the world as well as several literary prices. In 1993 and in 1997, Glissant respectively published one essay and one novel called Tout-monde <\/em>and Trait\u00e9 du Tout-monde<\/em>, in which he described the consequences of globalization. In 2007, Glissant created L\u2019institut du Tout-monde <\/em>in Paris, which exposed his notions of Relation <\/span>and Tout-Monde<\/span> \u2013 two principles of openness. In 2011, Glissant died at the age of eighty-two in Paris.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Key Concepts<\/span>:<\/p>\n

Antillanit\u00e9<\/strong><\/p>\n

Born in the 1960s, Antillanit\u00e9<\/em> was a movement that aimed to restitute a West Indian identity to the Antilles. The concept was created from a general discontent with the French system of assimilation, which did not allow differences within a national sameness. It also intended to distance C\u00e9saire, Damas and Senghor\u2019s N\u00e9gritude<\/em>, which advocated the return of black heritage to the French colonial system. Antillanit\u00e9<\/em> recognized a diverse mixture in cultures that composed the Antillean identity \u2013 an openness that gathered different civilizations to create a creole individual. Eight years after Glissant\u2019s Discours Antillais, <\/em>Patrick Chamoiseau, Rapha\u00e9l Confiant and Jean Barnab\u00e9 published Eloge \u00e0 la Cr\u00e9olit\u00e9<\/em> (In Praise of Creoleness), a literary tribute to Glissant in which they expand the concept of hybridity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Europeans, nor Africans, nor Asians, we proclaim ourselves Creoles.\u201d (Barnab\u00e9 et al).<\/p>\n

Creolization<\/strong><\/p>\n

This concept is an evolution in the thought of Glissant on Antillanit\u00e9<\/em>. Creolization is the result of relations<\/em> between cultures or several elements resulting in different identities. Glissant added one essential notion to this formation\u2014unpredictability. This singular element distances hybridization<\/em> from creolization<\/em>; the former indicates an expectable effect contrary to the latter. C\u00e9ry explains that \u201cCreolization is hybridization with an added value which is unpredictability\u201d (Edouard Glissant: Une Pens\u00e9e Archip\u00e9lique<\/em>). It is necessary to note that Glissant uses the word \u2018creolization\u2019 rather than \u2018creoleness\u2019 to emphasize the continuous process of this mixture.<\/p>\n

\u201cCreolization, one of the ways of forming a complex mix, and not merely a linguistic result, is only exemplified by its processes and certainly not by the \u2018contents\u2019on which these operate. This is where we depart from the concept of Creoleness\u201d (Glissant 89).<\/p>\n

Tout-Monde<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I call Tout-Monde<\/em> is our universe\u2014the way it changes and lasts by exchanging and, at the same time, the \u2018vision\u2019 we have of it\u201d (Glissant, Treatise on the Tout-Monde<\/em>, 176, translated by Charly Verstraet). Treatise on the Tout-monde<\/em> underlines the notion of relation, which recognizes and accepts diversity in the global world we live in today. In this specific term coined by Glissant, Tout-monde<\/em> quantifies all the differences present in the world.<\/p>\n

Rhizomatic Identity:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Glissant advocates the multiplicity of cultural identities in an individual and borrows Deleuze and Guattari\u2019s expression of \u201crhizome<\/em>\u201d (rhizomatic) to expose the complexity of the creole identity. The Rhizome<\/em> is a plant that grows underground and has roots that grow around other roots. Glissant applies it to creolization<\/em> where roots meet and share cultural bounds to form an identity.<\/p>\n

“Rhizomatic thought is the principle behind what I call the Poetics of Relation, in which each and every identity is extended through a relationship with the Other” (Glissant, 11).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noteworthy Essays<\/span>:<\/p>\n

Discourse on Antillanity<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1981, Glissant published one of his most preeminent essays, where he discusses the Antillean culture as a whole. He exposes a historical analysis of the islands through the system of plantations, the social scale with whites at the top and Africans and Hindus at the very bottom; through this analysis, Glissant aims to reduce the impact of assimilation to give \u201cvoice\u201d to the Antillean culture. He notably discusses the language of compromise, the creole, and the composite of civilizations that are part of the Antillean culture. This essay embodies the return of a culture, history, and literature of which the Antillean people have been deprived. Glissant, however, replaces this concept by introducing a new idea of relation, indicating the evolution of the writer\u2019s reflection.<\/p>\n

Poetics of Relation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poetics of Relation<\/em> is Glissant\u2019s most acclaimed essay and marks the significant turning point in the writer\u2019s way of thinking. His entire essay centers on this idea of Relation in creole cultures. He advocates the openness to the unknown, to the unpredictability. In his essay, Glissant tackles the questions of orality and literacy; translated texts and original texts; transparency and opacity; the relative and chaos; and creolization and rhizome identity among many others. Although this essay uses the creole approach to determine these terms, Glissant expands \u201ccreolization\u201d to the world in his 2007 essay, Trait\u00e9 du Tout-monde<\/em> (Treatise on the Tout-monde).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works<\/span><\/p>\n

Novels<\/em><\/p>\n