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Introduction: The Atlantic, between Scylla and Charybdis

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Cultures of the Lusophone Black Atlantic

Part of the book series: Studies of the Americas ((STAM))

Abstract

After decades of obsession with “difference,” historians, anthropologists, and other students of culture are directing their gaze to the seas and oceans as historical spaces of cultural production. Hidden dangers abound because, as historical and cultural spaces, the seas possess no visible boundaries, no inscribed landmarks, and no entitled owners; such dangers can and do, however, afford new opportunities. The seas loom up as seamless wholes that can absorb and reflect human history with the same plasticity with which they absorb and reflect the rays of the sun. They allow us to suspend for a moment our rigid and dogmatic dichotomies between nations, civilizations, Us and Them, Europe and Africa, the West and the Rest.

“It is not a matter of sailing between lands, since their situation would be unknown and their existence only a hypothesis. The reversal that is being proposed is quite more radical: only the travel is real, not the land, and the routes are replaced by the rules of navigation.” 1

“Routes, routes, routes, routes, routes, routes, routes” 2

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Authors
  1. Nancy Priscilla Naro
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  2. Roger Sansi-Roca
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  3. David H. Treece
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College, London, UK

    Nancy Priscilla Naro (Reader in Brazilian History, Co-Director) (Reader in Brazilian History, Co-Director)

  2. Centre for the Study of Brazilian Culture and Society, King’s College, London, UK

    Nancy Priscilla Naro (Reader in Brazilian History, Co-Director), Roger Sansi-Roca (Lecturer, Co-Director) & David H. Treece (Camoens Professor, Co-Director) (Reader in Brazilian History, Co-Director),  (Lecturer, Co-Director) &  (Camoens Professor, Co-Director)

  3. Department of Anthropology, Goldsmith’s College, UK

    Roger Sansi-Roca (Lecturer, Co-Director) (Lecturer, Co-Director)

  4. Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, King’s College, London, UK

    David H. Treece (Camoens Professor, Co-Director) (Camoens Professor, Co-Director)

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© 2007 Nancy Priscilla Naro, Roger Sansi-Roca, and David H. Treece

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Naro, N.P., Sansi-Roca, R., Treece, D.H. (2007). Introduction: The Atlantic, between Scylla and Charybdis. In: Naro, N.P., Sansi-Roca, R., Treece, D.H. (eds) Cultures of the Lusophone Black Atlantic. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230606982_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230606982_1

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37003-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-60698-2

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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