Theorizing Africana Receptions

This paper presents a diasporic investigation of a particular "Venus" figure: South African Sara Baartman (nineteenth century), who performed under the name "Venus Hottentot." Through a temporal and geographical collision with the archetypical Knidian Aphrodite (fourth century BCE), this paper provides insight into the complex performativity of Black femalehood in conjunction with an overwritten Greco-Roman divinity.

"Racism. The belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance, manifest and implied. Women respond to racism. My response to racism is anger." So Audre Lorde begins her essay "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism." For Lorde, anger is not simply the flame igniting her passion for justice but the whetstone which sharpens her resistance. Her anger emerges as a direct challenge to the constant impositions of a white patriarchal society and as a productive source of knowledge shared by the community of the oppressed.

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing research project on the reception of Saint Augustine in the modern Maghreb, led jointly by a Classicist and a colleague from French studies. We consider this as a case study which can be transferred to the broader reception of antiquity in the Maghreb.