Description
Book SynopsisApproaching Haiti’s history and culture from a multidisciplinary perspectiveThis volume is the first to focus on teaching about Haiti’s complex history and culture from a multidisciplinary perspective. Making broad connections between Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean, contributors provide pedagogical guidance on how to approach the country from different lenses in course curricula. They offer practical suggestions, theories on a wide variety of texts, examples of syllabi, and classroom experiences.
Teaching Haiti dispels stereotypes associating Haiti with disaster, poverty, and negative ideas of Vodou, going beyond the simplistic neocolonial, imperialist, and racist descriptions often found in literary and historical accounts. Instructors in diverse subject areas discuss ways of reshaping old narratives through women’s and gender studies, poetry, theater, art, religion, language, politics, history, and popular culture, and they advocate for including Haiti in American and Latin American studies courses.
Portraying Haiti not as “the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere” but as a nation with a multifaceted culture that plays an important part on the world’s stage, this volume offers valuable lessons about Haiti’s past and present related to immigration, migration, locality, and globality. The essays remind us that these themes are increasingly relevant in an era in which teachers are often called to address neoliberalist views and practices and isolationist politics.
Contributors:Cécile Accilien Jessica Adams Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken Anne M. François Régine Michelle Jean-Charles Elizabeth Langley Valérie K. Orlando Agnès Peysson-Zeiss John D. Ribó Joubert Satyre Darren Staloff Bonnie Thomas Don E. Walicek Sophie Watt
Trade ReviewA timely effort to overcome stereotypes and decolonize knowledge. . . . This unparalleled contribution inserts seldom-heard Haitian voices and a much-needed postcolonial perspective into scholarly and personal narratives of Haiti. . . . Essential." —
ChoiceTable of Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Ayiti se tè glise: Intersectionalities of History, Politics, and Culture
- Cécile Accilien and Valérie K. Orlando
- I. Teaching About Haitian Art, Literature, and Language
- 1. Getting Around the Poto Mitan: Reconstructing Haitian Womanhood in the Classroom
- Régine Jean-Charles
- 2. Teaching Haiti Through the Work of Rodney Saint-Eloi, écrivain engage
- Bonnie Thomas
- 3. Teaching Haitian Theater: Franck Fouché's Bouqui au paradis
- Joubert Satyre
- 4. Engaging Haiti Through Art and Religion
- Cécile Accilien
- 5. Creating Interdisciplinary Knowledge About Haiti's Creole Language
- Don E. Walicek
- II. Teaching About Haitian History and Politics
- 6. Haiti in the Presidencies of John Adams and John Quincy Adams: Lesson Plans and Course Modules
- Darren Staloff and Alessandra Benedicty-Kokken
- 7. Teaching the 2004 Coup in Haiti from a French Perspective: Insights into Global Neo-Imperial Culture and Practices
- Sophie Watt
- 8. Peck's Fatal Assistance: A Filmic Lesson on the Failures of Aid
- Agnès Peysson-Zeiss
- III. Teaching About Haiti in American Studies, Latin American Studies, and General Studies Contexts
- 9. Rendering Haiti Visible in an Introductory American Studies Course
- Elizabeth Langley
- 10. Race and Culture on the Thrift Store Shift: Teaching About Haiti Inside and Outside the Academy
- Jessica Adams
- 11. Rethinking Latinx Studies from Hispaniola's Borderlands
- John Ribó
- 12. Teaching Haiti and the Dominican Republic: Cultural Representations of Haitian Immigrant Experiences
- Anne M. François
- Index
- Contributors
