{"id":53749,"date":"2017-05-01T02:19:39","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T02:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=53749"},"modified":"2017-05-01T02:19:39","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T02:19:39","slug":"heroines-of-the-haitian-revolutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=53749","title":{"rendered":"Heroines of the Haitian Revolutions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/heroines-of-the-haitian-revolution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em><strong>Heroines of the Haitian Revolutions<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Books<\/a><br \/>\n2017-04-28<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Soccerpolitics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Laurent Dubois<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Romance Studies and History and the Director of the Forum for Scholars &amp; Publics<br \/>\n<em>Duke University, Durham, North Carolina<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/heroines-of-the-haitian-revolution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Linen-Market-at-St.-Domingo-e1493250438900-1024x791.jpg\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What is the role of an artist in the face of political repression? What is the place of culture in the midst of injustice and terror? Haitian writer <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marie_Vieux_Chauvet\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Marie Vieux-Chauvet<\/a> (1916\u20131973), author of powerful novels representing the experience of living under the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Duvalier<\/a> dictatorship, confronted such questions throughout her life.<\/p>\n<p>One of Vieux-Chauvet\u2019s earliest novels, <a href=\"https:\/\/archipelagobooks.org\/book\/dance-on-the-volcano\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Dance on the Volcano<\/em><\/a> (1957), just published in a new English translation, does so by journeying back to the world of plantation slavery and of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Haitian_Revolution\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Haitian Revolution<\/a>. The novel is woven around the life of a real historical figure, Minette, a free woman of African descent who overcame the racial barriers of the time to become a star singer on the colonial stage. It focuses on Minette\u2019s struggle to find both an artistic and a political voice, using her story as a crossroads through which to explore broader questions about art, sexuality, politics, and revolutionary change.<\/p>\n<p>Because of her background, Minette\u2019s presence onstage was always a risk, and her voice a weapon. Born in 1767, she was mentored by a white actress in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Port-au-Prince\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Port-au-Prince<\/a>, the colony\u2019s capital. In 1780, Minette performed onstage for the first time. Vieux-Chauvet dramatizes the scene of her debut by imagining the terror the young girl must have felt as she stared out at the crowd: rows and rows of white faces looking up at her, expectantly. As the violin strikes its first chord, Minette opens her mouth but no sound comes out&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicbooks.org\/heroines-of-the-haitian-revolution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the role of an artist in the face of political repression? What is the place of culture in the midst of injustice and terror? Haitian writer Marie Vieux-Chauvet (1916\u20131973), author of powerful novels representing the experience of living under the Duvalier dictatorship, confronted such questions throughout her life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1196,8,6940,25],"tags":[1062,18995,26915,22891,26236],"class_list":["post-53749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-women","tag-haiti","tag-haitian-revolution","tag-laurent-dubois","tag-marie-vieux-chauvet","tag-public-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53750,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53749\/revisions\/53750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}