When Saidiya Hartman visits the slave fort for the first time, she confronts the sight and smell of waste and dirt in the dungeon cells. She travels to Ghana to experience a diasporic connection with her ancestors, but there is no sign of the enslaved within the grimy walls of the fort. Considering the emptiness of this archive, the slave fort is a site of heritage tourism that fails in its purpose of commemorating the dead.
A Platform on Representation, Engagement, and Community
Author: Kuhelika Ghosh
Kuhelika Ghosh (she/her) is a Literary Studies PhD student in the Department of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on the intersection of postcolonial studies and the environmental humanities. She studies questions of multispecies justice, agency, care, and queer kinships within contemporary Anglophone literatures. Her writing has appeared in Edge Effects and is forthcoming in ariel: A Review of International English Literature. Prior to doctoral research, Kuhelika earned a BA in English and Communications from UCLA and an MA in Literary Studies from UW–Madison.