This conference focuses on the increased emphasis in recent decades by historians on the transnational history of the Atlantic world; the importance of the Caribbean in 18th-century politics, war and economy; links among the political revolutions in British North America, France and Saint-Domingue; the emergence of antislavery movements; and the enormous historical significance of the revolution in Saint-Domingue/Haiti. Continental breakfast at 9 am.
Schedule & Speakers Bio(s)
Louise Mirrer, President and CEO, New-York Historical Society
Opening remarks and keynote introduction
Richard Rabinowitz, curator of Revolution!
Ted Widmer, Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library
Session 1: The Haitian Revolution and Human Rights, Keynote Address
Laurent Dubois is Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University, Director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies and codirector of the Haiti laboratory of the Franklin Humanities Institute.
Session 2: Adventures in the Archives — Discovering the Treasures of the Age of Revolution
Jeremy D. Popkin is the T. Marshall Hahn, Jr., Professor of History at the University of Kentucky. Patrick Tardieu is a former Haitian diplomat and the former curator at La Bibliothèque Haitienne des Pères du Saint-Esprit, Port-au-Prince. Julia Gaffield is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Duke and received international media attention for her archival discovery of the only known government-issued copy of the Haitian Declaration of Independence. Ted Widmer (moderator) is Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library.
Session 3: The Caribbean and the United States in the Revolutionary Era
J. Michael Dash is Professor of French and former Director of the Africana Studies Program at NYU. Vincent Brown is Professor of History and of African and African-American Studies at Duke. Cathy Matson is Professor of History at the University of Delaware and Director of the Program in Early American Economy and Society in Philadelphia. Ashli White is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Miami. Ira Berlin (moderator) is Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Maryland.
Session 4: How Empires End. . .
Jeremy Adelman is the Walter Samuel Carpenter III Professor of Spanish Culture and Civilization at Princeton University. David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University. Thomas Bender (moderator) is University Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History at NYU.
The Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
Made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In kind assistance provided by The John Carter Brown Library.