The Intimacies of Four Continents

Posted on 26 June 2017 by Lisa Lowe

In this uniquely interdisciplinary work, Lisa Lowe examines the relationships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, exploring the links between colonialism, slavery, imperial trades and Western liberalism Reading across archives, canons, and continents, Lowe connects the liberal narrative of freedom overcoming slavery to the expansion of Anglo American empire, observing that abstract promises of freedom often obscure their embeddedness within colonial conditions Race and social difference, Lowe contends, are enduring remainders of colonial processes through which the human is universalized and freed by liberal forms, while the peoples who create the conditions of possibility for that freedom are assimilated or forgotten Analyzing the archive of liberalism alongside the colonial state archives from which it has been separated, Lowe offers new methods for interpreting the past, examining events well documented in archives, and those matters absent, whether actively suppressed or merely deemed insignificant Lowe invents a mode of reading intimately, which defies accepted national boundaries and disrupts given chronologies, complicating our conceptions of history, politics, economics, and culture, and ultimately, knowledge itself. Read The Intimacies of Four Continents author Lisa Lowe – kino-fada.fr Phenomenal Lisa Lowe reads across an incredible range of texts to build an approach to thinking through the relationship between European liberalism and the colonialism, slavery, indentured servitude, and dispossessions that define d the relationship between Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas Lowe resists the urge to be totalizing in her analysis or to craft a grand narrative of history rather, she precisely resists and refutes these to craft means of thinking through the intimacies of t Phenomenal Lisa Lowe reads across an incredible range of texts to build an approach to thinking through the relationship between European liberalism and the colonialism, slavery, indentured servitude, and dispossessions that define d the relationship between Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Am...Lisa Lowe s work is excellent This is a wonderful genealogy of liberalism and is an exciting read as well.I was pointed to this book through Colin Koopman s Genealogy as Critique where he claimed it was a prime example of genealogical methods entail, and I agree fully But it is also a careful and attentive account of how liberalism become the dominant political ideology, and how this history erases itself in its own mythologizing.Besides the wealth of historical detail, the two main things I Lisa Lowe s work is excellent This is a wonderful genealogy of liberalism and is an exciting rea...As a citizen, but especially as an educator, I am so glad that I read this book Lowe s work and the insights that follow from it are immeasurably significant Each chapter offers a new but rooted lens through which to experience her overall points The text i...Her pain staking research offers the material links to bolster Weheliye s work with Black Feminism I really needed to read this book right now I absolutely love chapter 3 It blew my mind how she used close reading to unpack the economic mechanisms of British colonialism.Helpful account connecting certain strands of global capitalism through liberalism but her over arching theme of the intimacies on four continents seemed stretched or unnecessary.Good intentions, unnecessarily long, convoluted, and jargon y result.

26 June 2017

Lisa Lowe