Black Roma: Afro-Romani Connections in Early Modern Drama (and Beyond)

This essay brings to light a hitherto unnoticed network of Afro-Romani connections in later seventeenth-century French and English drama, and it construes that network as conceptual and ethical genealogy for the bonds that exist today between Black studies and the fledgling field of critical Romani...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRenaissance quarterly Vol. 75; no. 4; pp. 1266 - 1302
Main Author Ndiaye, Noémie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge Cambridge University Press 01.12.2022
Subjects
17th century
Archives & records
Black studies
Capitalism
Early modern period
English literature
Ethics
Feminism
French literature
Human trafficking
Intellectuals
Race
Ravenscroft, Edward (1654?-1707)
Romani people
Slavery
Theater
England
United Kingdom > UK
France
Africa
Western Europe
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Summary:This essay brings to light a hitherto unnoticed network of Afro-Romani connections in later seventeenth-century French and English drama, and it construes that network as conceptual and ethical genealogy for the bonds that exist today between Black studies and the fledgling field of critical Romani studies. By close reading Molière's “Les fourberies de Scapin” (1671) and its 1677 adaptation by Edward Ravenscroft, among other objects, through the lens of critical race theory, this essay shows how theatrical culture across the Channel reckoned with the similar positionings of enslaved Roma and sub-Saharan Africans within the logic of early modern white supremacy.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236
DOI:10.1017/rqx.2022.332