HIST436 - Love, Anger, Madness: History and Silences in Modern Haiti

On the stage of modern world history, Haiti plays the unique role as both the exceptionally victorious and tragic character. This course interrogates archival documents, oral histories, historical texts, and prose created within the nation and her diaspora in order to establish a nuanced image of the projection of Haiti's modern history. Using two classic Haitian texts, Marie Vieux-Chauvet's Love, Anger, Madness (1968) and Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995),this course examines how, why,and to what end Haiti's history and popular narratives about the country have served to construct and dismantle global movements, popular culture, and meanings of race, gender, and citizenship in the Americas. In our historical examination, we will question some of the iconic representations of Haiti through literature that deepen the affective historical profile of Haiti with interrogations of culture, sexuality, political, and media performance. Students will become familiar with the post -colonial history of Haiti and the region, meanings of race, and the production of history. The course is a research and historical methods seminar. Students will conduct archival research and write narratives from primary source material. This course qualifies as a "methods" course for