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Across three Sat****ays in June, 1977, the New York |
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ran an extended interview with CLR James. At the time, James was seventy-six years old and teaching at the University of the District of Columbia. The interview, conducted by |
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feature writer Dawad Wayne Phillip, covered the question of Caribbean Federation, the importance of literature to politics, anti-colonialism in Africa, and the dilemmas of Black struggle in the United States in the wake of Black Power and the Civil Rights movement. James’s responses provide not only an incredible anatomy of Black politics in the 1970s, but a remarkably prescient reading of our contemporary present. |
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While we have ret**led the interview “Black Struggle and the New Society,” we reprint all three parts of the original unchanged but for a few minor copy edits. |
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Part I: Sat****ay, June 4, 1977 |
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One of the many projects you are involved with is a paper. |
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What would be the primary focus of the paper? |
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You mentioned “beginning with Cuba.” Would such a Federation use Cuba as the model? |
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To more understand the idea of a unified bloc could we say that CARIFTA and CARICOM, are roads in that direction? Or is this contradictory to what you are saying? |
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What then would be the radical step in the formation of such a Federation? |
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But this is not taking place throughout the remainder of the Caribbean? |
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What about Burnham’s role in Guyana? |
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It seems then, that what you are in the process of expressing would have to come through the formation of a new left-throughout the Caribbean, working in a co-operative sense toward that unit? |
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This idea then—the Manley proposal in the context of present multinational interests in the Caribbean—would appear headed for the strongest types of opposition… |
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Part II: Sat****ay, June 11, 1977 |
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“It is clear that the idea of an egalitarian society, in which, the aim of the government is not merely welfare—in the superficial sense—but the total reorganisation of the economy, in the interest of the ma*** of the pop****tion, is today a universal concept. I will venture a prophecy, which, is always a stupid thing to do. But the man who is not ready to be stupid at times, is a stupid man. Now if Manley of Jamaica succeeds—and he will succeed if the others come to his a***istance—the whole of the Caribbean will go his way in time. If he fails; then we could look forward autocratic, dictatorial and oppressive governments throughout the Caribbean.”—C.L.R. James |
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AMSTERDAM NEWS: (2) |
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Do you see the direction of Jamaica being taken elsewhere in the Caribbean? |
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Black Jacobins (3) |
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In Trinidad, where the main source of revenue is not on sugar, but oil, what is the hindrance toward a worker’s cooperative? |
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What are your thoughts on the Trinidad elections of 1976? |
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The Trinidad uprising skyrocketed the movement for change in the Caribbean… |
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There are claims of internal bickerings in the ULF [United Labor Front], in Trinidad; that efforts by party-leader, Basdeo Panday, to create a multiracial party, seem only to be a gesture by a political leader… |
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How do you view the ULF, which supports a socialistic ideology, while at the same time works through the Parliamentary process? |
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Taking a look now at the arts in the Caribbean: what do you feel is inc***bent on the artists and creative people in the effort to crystalise this new vision of Caribbean society. |
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How do you view the press treatment on Africa and particularly Uganda’s Amin? |
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Here in the U.S. we are fed these distortions, often without a base to refute. |
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Part III: Sat****ay, June 18, 1977 |
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What are your views on the Cuban presence in Africa? |
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s***fting our focus to America, how do you view the present Black struggle here in the United States? Where do you see it going? |
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Are we seeing those victories won through the struggles of the 60’s now being eradicated? |
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What do you see as the future? What in your view is the best road? |
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How do you see this new society being forged beginning with the urban conditions? |
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But what of the fact that when capital leaves the urban setting, it takes industry with it. It takes the wares with it, and invariably, leaves the inner-city hollow of any life. |
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Is the tendency of more state control and partic****tion in the urban situation, replacing private capital, to be the trend of the future? |
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CLR James: Conversations and Interviews, 1938-1989 |
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Transcription and copy-editing by Jessica Newby, Department of African American Studies, UCLA. |
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Geographer Marion Werner’s |
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is among the most important, and easily the most innovative, work of political economy to emerge on the Caribbean region over the past decades. Issued by the excellent |
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Antipode Book Series |
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, the imprint of |
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, |
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is a rigorous and trenchantly argued examination of the impact of the global organization of capitalist acc***ulation and exploitation on the life and labor of Haitian and Dominican people. Focusing on the garment industry, Werner looks at the circulation of capital and labor under neoliberalism, paying close attention to questions of geography, race, and gender. A critical, Caribbeanist intervention into geographic and political-economic research, |
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will stand as a cla***ic work of Caribbean studies. |
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Werner is |
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a***ociate Professor of Geography |
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at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. Her |
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research |
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is located at the nexus of critical development studies, feminist theory, and political economy with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to writing |
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, Werner is a co-editor of |
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The Doreen Ma***ey Reader |
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, and she has published articles in |
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and |
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. (7) |
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Werner is currently working on projects related to the international integration of national food systems via global trade and multinational regulation, including a study of rice farmers in the Dominican Republic and a project on the changing geographies of agricultural labor related to generic pesticide trade and production. |
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With its granular focus on workers from |
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Santiago de los Caballeros in the Cibao region of the |
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Dominican Republic and the Haitian border town of Ouanaminthe, the lives and labor of Caribbean people are at the center of |
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. Can you speak in general terms of who these people are and what issues they face in Caribbean labor markets structured and unstructured – and gendered – by global capitalism? Additionally, what are the kind of methodological issues you encountered in your research and writing? |
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Global Displacements |
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campos |
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cis |
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You’re a geographer. For those of us not in the field, can you explain what analytical tools the field brings to the study of Caribbean political-economic history? You write that you are attempting to produce “a relational geography of uneven development that foregrounds the ways in which places are iteratively forged in relation to one another” – but can you unpack this phrase for non-geographers, explaining how critical questions of space and place help us understand the different histories of Haiti and the Dominican Republic? |
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In Caribbean studies, the plantation, or – “The Plantation” – has loomed larger over the field, with authors describing it as a social and cultural inst**ution and not merely a political-economic machine. However, you write of the “global factory.” What is the global factory, and does it share a historical or historiographical continuity with The Plantation? |
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Cuban Counterpoint |
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Haiti: State against Nation |
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modus operandi |
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Development Arrested |
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How does the notion of “coloniality” allow us to understand the organization of race, difference, and the value of labor along the Haitian-Dominican border? |
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Your current research is on questions offood systems and sovereignty in the Caribbean, with a focus on the Dominican Republic’s rice economy. Can you say something about your approach to these questions and your initial findings? What are the political-economic stakes in this research for the DR and the wider Caribbean? |
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Past interviews by The Public Archive can be found |
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here |
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Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions |
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The Black Jacobins Reader (8) |
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Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity |
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Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures |
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C.L.R. James in Imperial Britain (2) |
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Chris Braithwaite: Mariner, Renegade, and Castaway |
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The Public Archive: Why Toussaint Louverture – and why now? And what led you both to historical projects on Black radicalism? |
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I Am Not Your Negro, |
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exactly |
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Toussaint was a mighty man |
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And to make matters worse he was black |
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Black and back in the days when black men knew |
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Their place was in the back |
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The Black Jacobins (39) |
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Toussaint Louverture: The story of the only successful slave revolt in history |
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political |
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History Workshop Journal |
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Black Jacobins Reader |
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Monsieur Toussaint (2) |
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A Times and a Season |
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Black |
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existence |
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resistance |
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New West Indian Guide |
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Lieux de mémoire |
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Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (2) |
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Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture |
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Die Revolution von Saint Domingue |
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Toussaint Louverture (4) |
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: Un révolutionnaire noir de l’Ancien Régime |
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In your introduction to |
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you argue that |
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is “much more than a book” and you describe it as part of a “text-network” made up of a series of “translations without an original.” What do you mean by this – and what are the texts (and contexts) that produced T |
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? How does this enhance our understandings or interpretation of |
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? |
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Surveying the American Tropics |
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Ancient Narrative |
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Poétique de la Relation |
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Reader (4) |
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The |
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Making of the Black Jacobins |
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The Beacon |
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oeuvre |
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The Making of the Black Jacobins |
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Inside the invisible: Memorialising Slavery and Freedom in the Life and Works of Lubaina Himid |
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Toussaint L’Ouverture |
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History of the Russian Revolution |
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World Revolution, 1917-1936 |
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The Making of The Black Jacobins |
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You also make the point that although it sometimes feels as if |
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has dominated the historiography of the Haitian Revolution since it was first published in 1938, the reality was and is somewhat more complicated. How so? |
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Capitalism and Slavery (3) |
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The Age of Revolution |
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Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture |
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Another question on circulation. How was The Black Jacobins taken up in the Caribbean and Africa? |
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after |
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Les Jacobins noirs |
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La Révolution française et le problème colonial |
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Havana Journal |
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Aperçu sur la formation historique de la nation haïtienne |
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Les Marrons de la Liberté |
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The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death |
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What is the theoretical, and perhaps methodological, importance of |
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to debates concerning the history of capitalism and slavery? |
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You suggest that James was aware of the methodological and archival limitations of |
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, especially concerning the focus on Louverture. Can you say more about this – about James’ own critiques, and about how other writers have extended or revised James biographical-historical method? |
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Conscripts of Modernity (2) |
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The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from below. |
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The Black Sans culottes |
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Small Axe |
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with |
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beyond |
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Can you say something about the editorial process behind The Black Jacobins Reader? What are the origins of the project and what guided your decisions about how to frame it, what to include and not include? |
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CH: The Black Jacobins Reader |
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C.L.R. James: His Intellectual Legacies |
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You dedicate Toussaint Louverture to Robert A. Hill and Janet Alder and Hill provides an introduction to The Black Jacobins Reader.What role has Hill played in the development of both projects? And Alder? |
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World Revolution |
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Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions. |
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You invoke the Kreyòl saying tou moun se moun (“everyone is a human being”) in your discussion of the politics of race and citizens***p in Haiti after 1804. What does this expression mean in the context of 1804 and what are the lessons that that phrase – and Haiti, in the immediate aftermath of independence – offer us now? Importantly, you also appear to suggest a sort of historical redemption of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. |
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Tout moun se moun |
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lwa |
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Dessalinienne |
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Jean-Jacques Dessalines: Freedom or Death, |
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Dating back to 1943, The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape at the Library of Congress contains nearly seven-hundred recordings of poets and prose writers partic****ting in sessions at the Library’s Recording Laboratory and at other locations around Spain and Latin America. It also contains seven recordings of Haitian writers. We provide links to those seven recordings below. |
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Luminaires |
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Epaule d’ombre |
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Survivances |
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Deblozailles |
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Collier la Rossée |
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Laetilis, Lyre Decla***ée |
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Imaginar l’imaginaire |
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Port-de-Paix multicolore, |
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Les grandes orgues |
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Mon poème de chair |
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Fraternité |
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Lettres du Fontamara |
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Lago-Lago |
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La négresse adolescente |
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Le jour, la nuit |
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Dialogue avec la femme endormi |
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A fonds perdu |
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The following letter of protest from the late Kamau Brathwaite was circulating in 2005. It is at once a heartfelt plea for his own plot of land in Barbados and a tragically visionary comment on the future of the Caribbean’s ecology] |
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Edward Kamau Brathwaite, May 11, 1930, Bridgetown, Barbados — February 4, 2020, Cow Pasture, Barbados. |
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Evelne Alcide, |
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, 2010. Museum of International Folk Art/Museum of New Mexico. Click links for more information; click image for larger version. |
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Soon after |
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The Public Archive |
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launched in 2010, we began featuring reading lists that, for the most part, appeared under the banner “Radical Black Reading.” To mark nearly a decade’s worth of publication, we’ve culled a number of entries from the lists, focussing on work that in our view deserves more attention while offering some direction for the decade to come. |
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q***** Africa Reader |
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The Red Summer Self-Guided Walking Tour: Chicago |
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Chiraq and its Meaning(s) |
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The 2015 Baltimore Uprising: A Teen Epistolary |
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Haiti’s New Dictators***p: The Coup, The Earthquake and the UN Occupation |
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Paramilitarism and the a***ault on Democracy in Haiti |
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Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority |
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The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy |
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Eslanda |
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: The Large Unconventional Life of Mrs Paul Robeson |
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African Journey |
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Fear of a Black Nation: Race, s***, and Security in Sixties Montreal |
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Fear of a Black Nation |
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A View for Freedom |
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Caribbean Spaces: Escapes from the Twilight Zone |
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Caribbean Spaces |
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Caribbean Political Thought: The Colonial State to Caribbean Internationalisms |
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Caribbean Political Thought: Theories of the Post-Colonial State |
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The Colonial State to Caribbean Internationalism |
200 |
s |
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Partido Independiente de Color |
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Theories of the Post-Colonial State |
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Caribbean Cultural Thought, |
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Black Reconstruction |
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Exodusters: Black Migration to Kansas after Reconstruction |
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Exodusters |
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Garvey and Garveyism (4) |
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500 Years of Indigenous Resistance |
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Prison of Gra***: Canada from a Native Point of View |
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An Indigenous People’s History of the United States |
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Night-Vision: Illuminating War and Cla*** on the Neo Colonial Terrain |
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Radical Black Reading: |
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2011 (2) |
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2012 (2) |
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2013 |
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2014. |
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2018. Reading Haiti: |
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2012. |
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. Radical Black Cities: |
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.Reading Against Fascism. |