The UWI St. Augustine Campus’s Faculty of Humanities and Education will host the Haitian Independence Bi-centenary Conference from June 15 to 18, 2004 in Trinidad. The conference is being held under the theme “Re-interpreting the Haitian Revolution and its cultural aftershocks, 1804-2004”. The Department is inviting interested persons to submit papers for presentation at this conference. The conference is timely because the year 2004 will mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the proclamation of Haitian independence by the former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines. These two hundred years have been marked by a long, turbulent process of social, political, and economic decline in the first black republic in the new world. Culturally, however, Haiti has remained highly productive; artists and thinkers of great note continue to emerge from the island.
The conference offers a unique opportunity to look back over the first two hundred years of Haitian independence, to engage with contemporary issues, and to look forward, to envision how the revolutionary legacy might manifest itself in the future. History and culture are inextricably linked, particularly in Haiti, and this conference will seek to identify the many ways in which the great historical upheaval of the revolution has touched culture in Haiti and beyond. Presenters will therefore seek to re-interpret the cultural legacy of the revolution, evaluate its influence on all aspects of culture in Haiti, and in the wider world. Papers to be presented should be 20 to 25 minutes in duration and may be presented in either French, English or Spanish. Prospective presenters should send proposals of between 300 and 500 words along with a brief resume to Dr. Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw or Dr Martin Munroe at the Department of Liberal Arts, St. Augustine Campus by November 1, 2003.