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Conférence Michael Dash - The Disappearing Island

Conférence Michael Dash - The Disappearing Island

Publié le par Stéphane Martelly (Source : H-Caribbean)

The Jagan Lecture & the Michael Baptista Lecture 2003 present
 

A Caribbean Dialogue
with

J. Michael Dash
Professor of Francophone Literature and Director of Africana Studies, New York University
Ph.D. University of the West Indies (Mona Jamaica); B.A. University of the West Indies


 




The Disappearing Island: 
Haiti, History and the Hemisphere

Haiti became the second sovereign nation in the Americas and the first black republic in 1804 when its people, in the only successful slave revolution in history, defeated French colonial rule. From this remarkable accomplishment, its tortured history has described a journey, through the struggles of its people, towards freedom (or libète in Creole, Haitis official language since 1991); against this impulse,  however, various actors and circumstances have conspired with such efficacy that Haiti continues to be considered (materially speaking) the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, its emancipatory project still unrealized.

J. Michael Dash will share his celebrated understanding of Haitian history and culture, and of their place within the larger context of the Caribbean and the Americas as a whole, on:


Saturday, March 20, 2003
7:30 pm

Vari Hall Lecture Room A
York University, Keele Campus
Toronto, ON


J. Michael Dash, born in Trinidad, has worked extensively on Haitian literature and French Caribbean writers, especially Edouard Glissant, whose works, The Ripening (1985) and Caribbean Discourse (1989) he has translated into English.  After 21 years at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, where he was Professor of Francophone Literature and Chair of Modern Languages, he is now Professor of French at New York University and Director of the Africana Studies Program. His publications include Literature and Ideology in Haiti (1981), Haiti and the United States (1988), Edouard Glissant (1995). His most recent translation is The Drifting of Spirits (1999) by Gisèle Pineau. His most recent books are The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context  (1998), Libete: A Haiti Anthology (1999) with Charles Arthur and Culture and Customs of Haiti (2001). He is at present working on Surrealism in the Francophone Caribbean.
 
 






This is a joint event of the Jagan Lecture Series and the Michael Baptista Lecture Series.

It constitutes the Fifth Annual Jagan Lecture, commemorating the life and vision of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, Caribbean thinker, politician, and political visionary, and the Third Bi-annual Baptista Lecture, named in honour of Michael Baptista.

The event is co-organized by CERLAC, LACS, York International, and the Jagan Lectures Planning Committee




A New World Perspective is not the product of polarizing, exclusivist politics or an attempt to create a new cultural enclave, but rather concerns itself with establishing new connections, not only among the islands of the archipelago but also exploring the region in terms of the Césairean image of that frail, delicate umbilical cord that holds the Americas together. 

-- J. Michael Dash, The Other America

More information: cerlac@yorku.ca, 416-736-2100 ext. 88705