Ayiti Re-imagined: The First Black Sovereign Nation

This video is a companion to a web resource “Freedom in the Black Diaspora: A Resource Guide for Ayiti Reimagined,” produced to gather these sources for scholars on Haiti, to centralize the information online and broaden awareness of Afro-Caribbean materials in the Library of Congress's collections. The guide and video connect the Library with an emerging audience discussing Haiti's history, its representation in the media and its positive impact on Black sovereignty in the Americas.

Bios:
Dr. Brandon R. Byrd is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth century Black intellectual and social history, with a special focus on Black internationalism. His book, The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti, recovers a crucial and overlooked chapter of Black internationalism and political thought by exploring the ambivalent attitudes that Black intellectuals in the post-Civil War era held toward Haiti. Dr. Byrd’s scholarship has appeared in journals such as The Journal of African American History, The Journal of Civil War Era, Slavery and Abolition, and The Journal of Haitian Studies, and in popular outlets, including The Washington Post. Support for his research has come from numerous institutions and organizations including Vanderbilt University, Marquette University, the American Philosophical Society, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass-Amherst, the Marcus Garvey Foundation, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. In addition to his research and teaching, Dr. Byrd is a co-editor of the Black Lives and Liberation series published by Vanderbilt University Press.

Dr. Leslie Alexander is Associate Professor in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Black culture, political consciousness, and resistance movements. Her first book is African or American?:Black Identity and Political Activism in New York City, 1784-1861, and her forthcoming book is Fear of a Black Republic: African Americans, Haiti, and the Birth of Black Internationalism.

Dr. Jean Eddy Saint Paul earned a PhD in Sociology at El Colegio de México. His ample publishing history includes books, articles, and contributions dealing with civil society, political sociology of the Haitian state and ruling class; the intersection between politics and religion. His works have been published in international academic and commercial publishers. As a former member of the National system of research in Mexico, and 'visiting professor' at the select Paris institute of political studies, commonly called Sciences Po., he made substantial contributions to the advancement of Haitian studies. Most of Saint Paul's scholarly work oscillates geographically between Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, he was a tenured professor of sociology and politics at the University of Guanajuato, in Mexico, where he co-founded the Ph.D. Program in Law, Politics & Government, the Master Program in Political Analysis, & the B.A. Program in Political Science.

Dr. Grégory Pierrot is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at the University of Connecticut at Stamford. He is the author of the books Decolonize Hipsters, The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture and co-editor of the forthcoming book An Anthology of Haitian Revolutionary Fictions. he is also a translator , and co-host of the Decolonize That! Webcast series. His work has appeared in Atlantic Studies, Studies in American Fiction, The African American Review, Criticism, Notes and Queries but also in Warscapes, Africa is a Country, and The Funambulist.

Dr. Chelsea Stieber is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Catholic University of America. She is the author of Haiti’s Paper War: Post-independence Writing, Civil War, and the Making of the Republic, 1804–1954 (New York University Press, 2020). The book, which was made possible in part by a Kluge Fellowship at the Library of Congress, explores Haiti's post-independence sovereignty and challenges our interpretations of both freedom struggles and the postcolonial. She is also co-editor, with Brandon Byrd, of the forthcoming critical translation of Louis Joseph Janvier’s Haiti for the Haitians (which will be coming out with Liverpool University Press). She is currently working on a new project on Caribbean Fascism, for which she was awarded an ACLS fellowship for the academic year 2020–2021.

For transcript and more information, visit https://www.loc.gov/item/webcast-10155