Conference honoring Haitian bicentennial draws a diverse, engaged crowd

By Franklin Crawford

Organizers of the two-day conference on "The Haitian Revolution in Global Context: A Bicentennial Commemoration" at Cornell had hoped for a respectable turnout.

What they got "was beyond our wildest imagination," said Fouad Makki, event coordinator and visiting professor at the university's Africana Studies and Research Center. The conference, held April 16 and 17, was co-hosted by the Africana Center and the Society for the Humanities at Cornell (SHC).

Makiem Hankoe, center, visiting scholar at Cornell, asks a question of panelists in Session I of "The Haitian Revolution in Global Context" conference, April 16, in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Flanking Hankoe are James Cotton, left, graduate student in Africana studies; and Mimi Sheller, from Lancaster University, who was a panelist in Session IV on Saturday. Robert Barker/University Photography

Despite the first balmy days of the season, the conference sessions drew a sustained audience of 80 to 100 people to the sixth floor of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. On the evening of April 16, Kaufmann Auditorium was packed and listeners sat in the aisles or stood for a reading by Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat in Goldwin Smith Hall.

Haiti gained its independence and abolished slavery in 1804, under the leadership of Toussaint L'Overture. This world-shaking event threw the gains of the French Revolution back into the face of imperialist France. In the past 200 years, Haiti has undergone hardships that would have crushed less-resilient cultures and Haiti, as evidenced by recent news, still plays an important role in international politics.

Conference participants discussed aspects related to four broad themes: Revolutionary Emancipation in Haiti and New World Slavery; The Black Jacobins and the Modern World; Emancipation and the Creative Imagination; and Post-emancipation and the Wages of Sovereignty. Attendees included many Cornell students and faculty from regional colleges and universities as far away as Washington, D.C.

"It was certainly more than a stimulating intellectual exercise," said Salah Hassan. professor of Africana studies and acting director of the Africana Center. "The discussions also related to current events that addressed the present situation in Haiti in relation to its past," he said. "The conference made people challenge their perception of Haiti and Haitian people [portrayed] in the corporate media. It also helped demystify the current crisis by pointing to the causes of the vicious cycle of coups engulfing Haiti and U.S. interventions."

The event remained lively in part due to the subject and a very engaged audience, Hassan said, and also because "presenters sent their papers in advance. As a result, discussants were well prepared and gave informed commentaries on papers."

Conference themes centered around the struggles in Haiti (then known as Saint Domingue) at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries.

"It became very clear during the conference itself that the enduring significance of the Haitian Revolution ... continuously exceeds the political [boundaries] of Haiti," said Makki. The "collective explorations of slavery, empire and nation formation" as structured into the conference sessions, continue to have implications in terms of what the modern world perceives as "natural rights, citizenship and sovereignty," he said.

An interdisciplinary mix of faculty from across Cornell served as conference chair-persons and discussants. They included: Margaret Washington, professor of history; Edward E. Baptist, assistant professor of history; Natalie Melas, associate professor of comparative literature; Jacques Coursil, visiting professor in Romance studies; and Locksley Edmondson, professor of Africana studies.

Session chair members included: Robert Harris, vice provost and professor of Africana studies; Viranjini Munasinghe, associate professor of anthropology; Ayele Bekerie, assistant professor of Africana studies and undergraduate studies director at the Africana Center; and James Turner, professor of Africana studies.

The conference opened with comments from Cornell Provost Biddy Martin and SHC Director Brett de Bary.

It was co-sponsored by Cornell's departments of History, Anthropology, Comparative Literature and English, the Creative Writing Program, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art and Cornell Cinema.