Venus in Two Acts, Saidiya Hartman

This essay examines the ubiquitous presence of Venus in the archive of Atlantic slavery and wrestles with the impossibility of discovering anything about her that hasn’t already been stated. As an emblematic figure of the enslaved woman in the Atlantic world, Venus makes plain the convergence of terror and pleasure in the libidinal economy of slavery and, as well, the intimacy of history with the scandal and excess of literature. In writing at the limit of the unspeakable and the unknown, the essay mimes the violence of the archive and attempts to redress it by describing as fully as possible the conditions that determine the appearance of Venus and that dictate her silence.

Cassandra Press was founded in 2016 by artist Kandis Williams as an independent publishing project. At its core, Cassandra Press examines tools of perception and racism, and their dominant role and expressions within current sociocultural systems. The press publishes lo-fi readers with texts by Black critical theorists, organises courses and produces artist zines and catalogues covering a broad range of topics that fuse questions of ethics, racial colonial violence, white supremacist delusion, and aesthetics.

Softcover
52 pages
150 x 210 mm