The Afro-Romance Institute at the University of Missouri is hosting a one-day symposium on Haiti in the Atlantic World on Friday, March 13, 2020. We are writing to cordially invite you, your faculty, and students to this event.  This interdisciplinary symposium reassesses Haitian history in a broader Atlantic context. It consists of four lectures and a film screening and will take place at the Tiger Hotel beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, March 13. Sessions are free and open to the public. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner is provided for those who pre-register by Monday, March 3 at this website:  https://cvent.me/kMALPO

In 1804, Haiti became the first independent nation in the Caribbean.  This momentous event came after a long and fraught revolution against French colonialism led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1791 and fueled by numerous slave revolts. Since that triumphant moment in time, Haiti’s economic and political fortunes have fallen, but its rich legacy in literature and art resonates powerfully on the world stage.

To honor this legacy, the Afro–Romance Institute at the University of Missouri is hosting Haiti in the Atlantic World, on Friday, March 13^th, at the Tiger Hotel.  This interdisciplinary symposium seeks to reassess Haiti’s role in configuring the history of the Atlantic world from the eighteenth century onward.  From diverse perspectives and disciplines—history, cultural and literary studies, sociolinguistics, and film—our conference will showcase Haiti’s influence in Caribbean and Atlantic history and culture.

The symposium ends with a showing of acclaimed Cuban film-maker Gloria Rolando’s

Reembarque/Reshipment (2014), a documentary about the deportation of Haitian laborers in Cuba during the late 1930s.

The conference pays homage to Dr. Flore Zéphir, our former colleague in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and an internationally known Haitian scholar who passed away suddenly in 2017.

The Afro-Romance Institute is sponsoring this program in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Other co-sponsors include the College of Arts & Science, the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures, the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy, the Division of Inclusion, Diversity & Equity,  International Studies, the Department of History, and Black Studies. For more information about the program, contact Dr. Adriana Méndez Rodenas, Director, Afro-Romance Institute.  Email: mendezah@missouri.edu;

Dr. Mary Jo Muratore: muratorej@missouri.edu, or Dr. Valerie Kaussen: kaussenv@missouri.edu.