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<p>This dissertation explores the themes of race and resistance in nineteenth-century
Haitian writings and highlights their impact on French-speaking nineteenth- and twentieth-century
African and Caribbean literature. This exploration spans across literary genres and
centuries, and juxtaposes disciplines that are rarely put into dialogue with each
other. Central to my approach is an interdisciplinary perspective that sheds light
on the key interactions between colonial history, legal decrees, anthropology and
engaged literature in nineteenth-century French and Francophone studies. And in charting
the impact of these writings on the twentieth-century Francophone landscape, this
project also addresses current debates in Caribbean, French and Haitian studies and
contributes to the growing literature in black Atlantic and postcolonial studies.
This research project begins by analyzing rhetorical representations of race and resistance
in rare texts from Toussaint Louverture, Pompée-Valentin de Vastey and Juste Chanlatte,
in particular with respect to their representations of the Haitian revolution (1791-1804),
the only successful slave revolt in history to have resulted in the creation of a
new state. By focusing on how Louverture, Vastey and Chanlatte responded to slavery,
pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference, and the pernicious effects of the
colonial system, it explores both the significance of the revolution's literary representation
and the extent of its impact on postcolonial imaginations in Haiti, and the rest of
the Caribbean, Africa and France. In particular, I analyze the impact these texts
had on subsequent African and Caribbean literature by Emeric Bergeaud, Joseph-Anténor
Firmin, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Aimé Césaire, Edouard Glissant, and Bernard Dadié.</p>
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