Gendering Islands
Ashley Williard, French
Faculty Advisor: Domna Stanton
Gendering Islands brings together a variety of documents concerning the seventeenth-century francophone Caribbean from archives and libraries in France, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the United States. Using Omeka, I am organizing such sources as travel narratives, legal codes and administrative correspondence by such variables as date, author, document type and theme. By examining the ideas that emerge from these sources along these lines through close readings, I am identifying the taxonomies colonists were establishing during this period of flux.
Although this project is initially intended as a reference tool for my dissertation, it also has potential as a collaborative teaching and research tool. As I add a growing number of sources, I plan to create exhibits of documents that would allow readers to enact their own analysis. By making these documents available to scholars and students, I hope to contribute to a better understanding of the establishment of colonialism and slavery in the francophone world.