Includes bibliographical references (p. [336]-376) and index.
Contents:
"Now being" : slavery, speculation, and the measure of our time -- Liverpool, a capital of the long twentieth century -- "Subject $" : or, the "type" of the modern -- "Madam death! madam death!" : credit, insurance, and the Atlantic cycle of capital accumulation -- "Signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon" : modernity and the truth event -- "Please decide" : the singular and the speculative -- Specters of the Atlantic : slavery and the witness -- Frontispiece : testimony, rights, and the state of exception -- The view from the window : sympathy, melancholy, and the problem of "humanity" -- The fact of history : on cosmopolitan interestedness -- The imaginary resentment of the dead : a theory of melancholy sentiment -- "To tumble into it, and gasp for breath as we go down" : the idea of suffering -- And the case of liberal cosmopolitanism -- This/such, for instance : the witness against "history" -- "The sea is history" -- "The sea is history" : on temporal accumulation.
Summary:
Ian Baucom presents a study of the 1781 massacre of 133 slaves on the slaveship Zong for the insurance money and the after-effects of the event on the development of modernity. Baucom insists that this is not just a past atrocity but is present within the future we now inhabit.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.