Scenes of Subjection

In this radical re-evaluation of American history, Saidiya Hartman uses her singular talents to create a striking portrait of nineteenth-century slavery and its many afterlives.

By turning critical attention away from the 'terrible spectacle' of the popular imagination, a fuller understanding of the atrocity can be reached by looking instead toward its characteristic forms of routine terror and quotidian violence. Scenes of Subjection examines these forms of domination that usually go undetected: the encroachments of power that take place through notions of humanity, enjoyment, and consent and the roots of Enlightenment ideals in racial subjugation.

Delving into what has been withheld and overlooked at the margins of the historical archive, Hartman starkly illuminates the interconnected nature of enslavement, image-making, and present-day racism—and the possibilities for Black resistance, redress, and transformation.

In a work as resonant today as it was on first publication, the updated edition features a new preface by the author, a foreword by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an afterword by Marisa J. Fuentes and Sarah Haley, notations with Cameron Rowland, and compositions by Torkwase Dyson.