TY - JOUR

T1 - World War I and its Aftermath

T2 - Reaching for the Past and across the Atlantic

AU - Gohrisch, Jana

PY - 2021/11

Y1 - 2021/11

N2 - This article focuses on the British West Indies beginning with the involvement of African Caribbean soldiers in the Great War. It challenges the enduring myth of the First World War as a predominantly white European conflict. The main part focuses on C. L. R. James, the Trinidadian historian and playwright, following his paradigmatic trajectory from the colony to the ‘mother country’ and his involvement in the protracted transnational process of decolonization after the First Word War. It concentrates on one of his political pamphlets and on his play Toussaint Louverture. The work of the British writer and left-wing political activist Nancy Cunard is also presented as another ‘outsider’ text which can further an ongoing methodological project: the re-integration and cross-fertilization of received knowledge about the war with seemingly outlying knowledge, unorthodox political commitment and challenging aesthetics to produce a richer understanding of this formative period across the Atlantic divide.

AB - This article focuses on the British West Indies beginning with the involvement of African Caribbean soldiers in the Great War. It challenges the enduring myth of the First World War as a predominantly white European conflict. The main part focuses on C. L. R. James, the Trinidadian historian and playwright, following his paradigmatic trajectory from the colony to the ‘mother country’ and his involvement in the protracted transnational process of decolonization after the First Word War. It concentrates on one of his political pamphlets and on his play Toussaint Louverture. The work of the British writer and left-wing political activist Nancy Cunard is also presented as another ‘outsider’ text which can further an ongoing methodological project: the re-integration and cross-fertilization of received knowledge about the war with seemingly outlying knowledge, unorthodox political commitment and challenging aesthetics to produce a richer understanding of this formative period across the Atlantic divide.

KW - African Caribbean soldiers

KW - British West Indies

KW - C. L. R. James

KW - Haitian Revolution

KW - Nancy Cunard

KW - self-government

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85119149214&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/00472441211033410

DO - 10.1177/00472441211033410

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85119149214

VL - 51

SP - 304

EP - 317

JO - Journal of European Studies

JF - Journal of European Studies

SN - 0047-2441

IS - 3-4

ER -