The Topic
In our discussion of
Freeman’s Affairs of Honor, several
of you pointed out, quite astutely, that Freeman does not consider how race and
gender influenced honor culture in early republican politics. In Leonora Sansay’s novel Secret History, however, race, gender,
and aspects of honor culture do influence the politics of the republican
experiment in revolutionary Saint-Domingue.
This begs the question that is the subject for this essay: How might Sansay’s depiction help to
reformulate Freeman’s idea of honor culture in the United States?
Essay Requirements
Your consideration of this
question should include two components.
1)
Focus on the
intersection between EITHER race and
honor OR gender and honor, as
Sansay presents it in Saint-Domingue. Draw
on relevant examples from the text that show the political ramifications of
either pairing. (The introduction should argue, in its thesis, what exactly
those political ramifications are.)
2)
Suggest, in a
thoughtful and somewhat extended conclusion, how Sansay’s appraisal of
Saint-Domingue might be useful for rethinking honor culture in the early U.S.
republican politics. After all, Sansay
was an American, and Secret History
uses Saint-Domingue as a foil to examine key issues in the early U.S. republic.
What might we learn if we introduced
either race or gender into our assessments of honor culture in the 1790s United
States? (I anticipate that this will be
somewhat speculative, but it should be informed by your understanding of
Freeman, Sansay, and course material more generally.)
Each essay should be 5 pages
in length, double-spaced, with one-inch margins. (This page limit is firm: you
can spill over into six pages, but I will not read anything beyond that.) Number your pages. The essay title should reflect the
thesis/argument of its author. Citations from the texts can be indicated at the
end of a sentence in the following manner: (author, page).
These are the thinks I need to fix:
This draft raises some important questions about the trajectory of honor, race, and slavery up through the Civil War. And it points out that Freeman doesn’t really address how slavery shaped honor culture in national politics. The essay would be stronger if it cited and analyzed specific examples from Sansay’s novel in which we see her appraising who was and was not honorable in the final phase of the Haitian Revolution. While Sansay is not an abolitionist, it does seem that in her fictional account of events in Saint-Domingue, one’s racial identity does not necessarily determine one’s capacity to act honorably. Both Black and white men act dishonorably at times, and honorably at times. Can the essay show this dynamic in action? And can the essay consider how this dynamic encourages us to ask new questions about honor in US national politics? To make good on these suggestions, spend some time revisiting the novel, looking for instances where Sansay appraises the actions of various individuals. Then categorize and analyze those episodes. Finally, judging from the citations, it looks like you are drawing on authors other than Sansay and Freeman. Make sure that you provide the full citations of those works at the end of the paper. I am happy to talk about this in person, if you’d like.
