Migrant Revolutions: Haitian Literature, Globalization, and U.S. Imperialism

by Valerie Kaussen

Overview

Migrant Revolutions: Haitian Literature, Globalization, and U.S. Imperialism interprets Haitian literature in a transnational context of anti-colonial—and anti-globalization—politics. Positing a materialist and historicized account of Haitian literary modernity, it traces the themes of slavery, labor migration, diaspora, and revolution in works by Jacques Roumain, Marie Chauvet, Edwidge Danticat, and others. Author Valerie Kaussen argues that the sociocultural effects of U.S. imperialism have renewed and expanded the relevance of the universal political ideals that informed Haiti's eighteenth-century slave revolt and war of decolonization. Finally, Migrant Revolutions defines Haitian literary modernity as located at the forefront of the struggles against transnational empire and global colonialism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780739116364
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	12/24/2007
Series:	After the Empire: The Francophone World and Postcolonial France
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	6.38(w) x 9.47(h) x 0.83(d)

About the Author

Valerie Kaussen is associate professor of French at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction: Engaging Creolization and Postcolonial Theory
Chapter 2 Chapter 1. Modernism, Migration and the US Occupation in EarlyIndigenisme
Chapter 3 Chapter 2. The Market in Bodies and Souls: Transnational Labor and the Haitian Revolution in Maurice Casseus'sViejo
Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Slaves,Viejos and theInternationale: the Marxist novels of Jacques Roumain and Jacques-Stephen Alexis
Chapter 5 Chapter 4. Decolonization, Revolution, and Postmodernity in Marie Chauvet's "Amour"
Chapter 6 Chapter 5. Revealing is Healing: The Memory of Collective Politics in Edwidge Danticat'sThe Dew Breaker andThe Farming of Bones
Chapter 7 Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

Inspired by the reevaluation of the Haitian Revolution as central to the project of modernity in the Americas, Migrant Revolutions treats writing after the U.S. intervention as a continuation of the revolutionary ideals of 1804. Kaussen perceptively constructs modern Haitian narratives as essentially urban ethnographies and fictions of displacement provoked by the disruptive effect of U.S. imperialism. Her rereading of Jacques Roumain, Marie Chauvet and Edwidge Danticat will certainly have a great impact on the field of Caribbean and francophone studies.

J. Michael Dash

Professor Valerie Kaussen's Migrant Revolutions represents thoroughly researched and well-written scholarship. This book breaks new ground in its analysis of the various and contending forces that have shaped and subtended the production of Haitian literature in the twentieth century. By analyzing a set of key themes, including Haitian revolutionary traditions, labor practices under U.S. occupation, and global migrations of people and capital, she successfully challenges prevailing attitudes of colonialism and slavery, through global ideologies of materialism and capitalist modernity to the role of social movements like noirisme and indigenisme. I am confident that this work will make an important contribution to the fields of Francophone cultural studies and Haitian studies.

H. Adlai Murdoch

A valuable study of Haiti's Marxist literary tradition....Recommended.

Choice Reviews

A valuable study of Haiti's Marxist literary tradition....Recommended.

August 2008 Choice Reviews

A valuable study of Haiti's Marxist literary tradition....Recommended.

August 2008 CHOICE

A valuable study of Haiti's Marxist literary tradition....Recommended.

August 2008 Choice

Professor Valerie Kaussen's Migrant Revolutions represents thoroughly researched and well-written scholarship. This book breaks new ground in its analysis of the various and contending forces that have shaped and subtended the production of Haitian literature in the twentieth century. By analyzing a set of key themes, including Haitian revolutionary traditions, labor practices under U.S. occupation, and global migrations of people and capital, she successfully challenges prevailing attitudes of colonialism and slavery, through global ideologies of materialism and capitalist modernity to the role of social movements like noirisme and indigenisme. I am confident that this work will make an important contribution to the fields of Francophone cultural studies and Haitian studies.--H. Adlai Murdoch, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Inspired by the reevaluation of the Haitian Revolution as central to the project of modernity in the Americas, Migrant Revolutions treats writing after the U.S. intervention as a continuation of the revolutionary ideals of 1804. Kaussen perceptively constructs modern Haitian narratives as essentially urban ethnographies and fictions of displacement provoked by the disruptive effect of U.S. imperialism. Her rereading of Jacques Roumain, Marie Chauvet and Edwidge Danticat will certainly have a great impact on the field of Caribbean and francophone studies.--J. Michael Dash, New York University

A valuable study of Haiti's Marxist literary tradition....Recommended.--CHOICE, August 2008

From the Publisher