Events

Duke’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies is celebrating our 2nd annual International Creole Day on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. in the John Hope Franklin Center, room 240.

Our special guest will be Michaeline A. Crichlow, Professor of African & African American Studies at Duke

At 5:00 p.m., there will be student presentations in Creole with English handouts by:
Sandie Blaise (Duke University): “Fèt kreyòl: literati ak kesyon sosyal”
Tara Kingsley (Vanderbilt University): “Esperyans mwen nan kominote kiche ak ayisyen an.

At 5:35 p.m., Professor Crichlow will give her talk “Creolization, Americanity, and the Global Caribbean” followed by questions from the audience.

At 6:40pm, Mariana Magloire (Duke University) will present “Kont Kreyòl: Ti kolibrit, ti kabrit, ak ti chat k ap fè laviwonndede ak mizik”

At 7 p.m., there will be a Haiti Lab Welcome Reception in Franklin Center 130.

All are welcome. Se Kreyòl nou ye!

Co-sponsored by: Haiti Lab, Duke Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Franklin Humanities Institute, Center for French & Francophone Studies, and the Department of Romance Studies.

For more information contact Jacques Pierre, Co-director of the Haiti Lab at jp189@duke.edu

Duke’s Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies is celebrating our 2nd annual International Creole Day on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. in the John Hope Franklin Center, room 240.

Our special guest will be Dr Ben Hebblethwaite, Associate Professor in Haitian Creole, Haitian & Francophone Studies at the University of Florida.

At 5:00 p.m., there will be student presentations featuring Haley Thalbot (Duke) and Gabrielle Charlotte Patterson (Univ of Virginia) and their talk, “Ki jan kreyòl la makonnen yo ak Ayiti.” Also, Michael Becker, Ph.D student in Department of History at Duke will present, “Deplòtonnen sa Ayisyen panse sou revolisyon peyi yo ak entèpretasyon  sa ki  kouche nan achiv.” The talks will be in Creole, with handouts in English provided.

At 6 p.m., Professor Hebblethwaite will give his talk “Cycles of Salutation in the Rada Rite:Fundamentals and Particulars in the Greetings of the Haitian Vodou Rada Spirits,” followed by questions from the audience.

At 7 p.m., there will be a Haiti Lab Welcome Reception in Franklin Center 130.

Dr. Hebblethwaite has won two national grants, one from the National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research grant (2012-2015) with co-PI Laurent Dubois at Duke University and another from the National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship (2013) with PI Mariana Past at Dickinson College. He is the author of two books (Vodou Songs in Haitian Creole and English and Une saison en enfer / Yon sezon matchyavèl, with Jacques Pierre), 12 articles, 1 book chapter and 1 digital publication. Past and Hebblethwaiteare currently working on a critical edition of Michel Rolph Trouillot’s (1977) Haitian Creole masterpiece, Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti.

All are welcome. Se Kreyòl nou ye!

Co-sponsored by the Haiti Lab, Office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences, Duke University Center for International Studies, Center for French & Francophone Studies, and the Department of Romance Studies.

The first page of the manuscript copy of the Haitian Declaration of Independence now at the Rubenstein Library.

On January 24, the Haiti Lab celebrated the Rubenstein Library’s acquisition of a historic manuscript copy of the Haitian Declaration of Independence. This rare document was recently found in France among the papers papers of Jean Baptiste Pierre Aime Colheux de Longpré, a French colonizer of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) who fled the country during its revolution and settled in New Orleans. The copy was very likely made shortly after the Declaration took effect on 1 January, 1804. It is one of only a few contemporary or near-contemporary manuscript copies known to scholars, joining copies at the British Library, the French National Archives, and the National Library of Jamaica. Read more about the document on the Duke Library blog.

In honor of this important find, the Haiti Lab (along with Duke Libraries, CLACS, and the Forum for Scholars and Publics) held an evening of events that included a roundtable discussion with Richard Rabinowitz, Julia Gaffield, Laurent Dubois and Deborah Jenson, the unveiling of the document by Duke archivist Will Hansen, and Jacque Pierre’s reading of his translation of the text into Kreyol. That evening also marked the opening of the CLACS gallery exhibit “Haiti: Sevis Lwa”, a collection of Haitian Vodou flags on loan from the Florida International University’s Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum.

The event was also covered by the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste, who sent journalist Roberson Alphonse to report on the festivities.

UPDATE 4/30/13: The conference panels were livestreamed – please view the archived videos here! 

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Please join the Haiti Lab on April 11-12 for Humanitarianism in Haiti: Visions and Practice. The culminating project of Prof. Joshua Nadel’s “Haiti Project” course, this conference seeks to bring together grassroots activists and donors, international NGO workers and theorists to critically assess both the aims of humanitarian and development aid and the efficacy of aid design and delivery.

For more information, please visit the conference website: https://sites.fhi.duke.edu/humanitarianisminhaiti/