Televising Transnational Trauma : Visions and Versions of Slavery in the Americas

Televising Transnational Trauma offers a critical analysis of global media representations of the traumatic history of slavery in the Americas. Reflecting on the profound influence of the American miniseries Roots and the Brazilian telenovela A Escrava Isaura on their respective genres, the book traces the evolution of serialized slave narratives on screen. These productions are explored through the lens of communal memory, shaped by culturally bound understandings of shared histories across both homogenous and disparate groups. Taking a transnational approach, the book examines how these televisual series delicately balance respect for cultural sensibilities with the demands of historical accuracy, archival material, and global engagement. By considering a wide range of series from the Anglophone, Hispanophone, Lusophone, and Francophone worlds, Myriam Mompoint highlights how these works circulate as cultural commodities in both domestic and export markets. In doing so, she explores how they reinscribe the legacies of slavery within the constraints of contemporary media. Engaging with memory studies, media studies, trauma theory, and spectrality, Televising Transnational Trauma brings a fresh perspective to comparative African diaspora scholarship. It critically examines how these televisual productions reflect and reimagine cultural memories of chattel slavery for audiences worldwide.