Telling Histories: A Conversation with Laurent Dubois and Greg Grandin (original) (raw)

Colonial Subjects No More: Histories of the Haitian Revolution

In his 1995 book Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, Michel-Rolph Trouillot has used the construction of both public memory and the academic M a t t s o n | 2 historiography of the Haitian Revolution to explore issues such as dominant narratives, historical silences, and the postmodernist recognition of many truths. These themes can in fact be seen quite often in the recent historiography of the Haitian Revolution due to its remarkable but for too long silenced impact on world history. Trouillot emphasizes the usefulness of the Haitian Revolution in examining the discipline of history itself, down to the insistence upon the rigors of research even in a postmodernist context. "The unearthing of silences," writes Trouillot, "and the historian's subsequent emphasis on the retrospective significance of hitherto neglected events, requires not only extra labor at the archives […] but also a project linked to an interpretation." 1 The historiography of the Haitian Revolution intersects with many issues of French colonialism; modernism, colonialism, postcolonialism, slavery, revolts, revolutions, racism, citizenship, republicanism and historical discourse are all topics which are well-represented in the scholarship. This essay will explore the English-language histories of the Haitian Revolution with a primary focus on the most recent works.

Archives of Revolution: Toward New Narratives of Haiti and the Revolution

Cul de Sac: : Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue. By PAUL CHENEY. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2017. 274 pages. Cloth, ebook. The Haitian Revolution and the Early United States: Histories, Textualities, Geographies. Edited by ELIZABETH MADDOCK DILLON and MICHAEL J. DREXLER. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 430 pages. Cloth, ebook. Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America. By JAMES ALEXANDER DUN. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 350 pages. Cloth, ebook. The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Creation, Context, and Legacy. Edited by JULIA GAFFIELD. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016. 295 pages. Cloth, ebook. An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emanicipatin, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789–1809. By GRAHAM T. NESSLER. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 312 pages. Cloth, ebook.

Haiti and Its Revolution: Four Recent Books

Radical History Review, 2013

Haiti' s history, Laurent Dubois tells us, "can-indeed must-serve as a source of inspiration, and even hope" (10). For those who would write it, this is a problem. Among the country's many burdens has been the exemplary role it has perforce played in international debates about slavery, colonialism, and race. Just as its earliest chroniclers often aimed to denigrate, modern historians frequently lean toward apologetics and celebration. The attraction exerted by Haiti's revolutionary origins has tended to pull in writers more eager to make a statement than to research its

The Haitian Revolution & Contemporary Theory

The Frantz Fanon Blog, 2014

This essay will discuss two of the ways in which the Haitian Revolution is significant for the practice of contemporary theory. It suggests that the Haitian Revolution unseals the silenced history of the contemporary praxis of liberal democracy-issuing a warning of the long-term consequences of silencing that which is deemed unthinkable at one time-and in the process offers the emancipatory potential of an actual universal doctrine of human rights. It will track the history of the hegemonic global political order that is now understood to be that of "neo-liberal capitalism and democracy" (Neocosmos, 2011: 362) and its limitation to a negative, legal interpretation of human rights (Nesbitt, 2009: 94). The contradictions and silenced chapter of that history establish the need for a rethinking of human rights. This is necessary for the practice of contemporary theory to constitute an emancipatory political project. The recognition of the Haitian Revolution shifts the genesis of contemporary human rights discourse - with emancipatory implications.

The Haitian Revolution (book chapter)

Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations, 2023

This chapter sketches out two divergent options for rectifying the neglect of the Haitian Revolution in the eld of international relations. First, we can make a claim for Haiti's centrality to international politics by tracing the effects and repercussions of its revolution on the Caribbean, the Americas and the world at large. Alternatively, we can see Haiti’s revolution as exposing the limitations of the categories we use to measure significance and meaning when we study the international. This latter option means abandoning the idea of centrality altogether, drawing on Haiti’s own intellectual history to sketch an alternative view of the international: its forms of power, hierarchies, constraints, and possibilities.