1
Laurent Dubois
Professor of Romance Studies and History
213 Language Center, Box 90257
Duke University
Durham, NC27708-0257
Education
University of MichiganAugust 1998
Ph.D. in Anthropology and History
Dissertation: A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1789-1802
Committee: Fernando Coronil (chair), Ruth Behar, Simon Gikandi, Julius Scott, Rebecca Scott, Ann Stoler
PrincetonUniversityMay 1992
B.A. in Anthropology and EnglishGraduated summa cum laude
Certificates in Afro-American Studies, Latin American Studies, and Creative Writing
Senior Theses: The Only Medicine We Have: AIDS and the Creolization of Medicine in Guadeloupe (Anthropology, Afro-American and Latin-American Studies), ResurrectionCity (English and Creative Writing)
Teaching Positions
Departments of Romance Studies and History, DukeUniversity, Full Professor 2007-present
Department of History, MichiganStateUniversity, Associate Professor 2003-2007
Department of History, MichiganStateUniversity, Assistant Professor 1998-2003
Courses Developed and Taught:
Upper-level lecture/discussion courses on “The Caribbean” and “Colonial America: Three Worlds Meet”; undergraduate seminars on “Empire and Rebellion” and “Cultures of Universalism”; Comparative Black History graduate seminars on “The Struggle for Rights” and “Afro-Atlantic Religion in Historical Perspective”; graduate history course on “Atlantic History”; survey course, in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Humanities called “Europe and the World,” focused on empire
Department of Afro-American Studies, HarvardUniversity, Visiting Assistant Professor Spring 1999
Course Taught: “Rituals of History: African Religion and the Making of Modernity”
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Graduate Student Instructor Summer 1998
Course Taught: “Vodou and Spirit Possession”
Department of History, University of Michigan, Graduate Student Instructor Winter 1996
Course Taught: “Modern Latin American History” (with Professor Fernando Coronil)
Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Graduate Student Instructor Winter 1994
Course Taught: “Narratives of the Borderland Self” (with Professor Ruth Behar)
Michigan/Wisconsin Study Abroad Program in Aix-en-Provence, Program Assistant 1994-95
Selected Fellowships, Grants and Awards
Research Grant, Intramural Research Grant Program, Michigan State University 2005-06
Research Grant, French Ministère d’Outre-Mer2005-06
Fintz Excellence in Teaching Award2004
M.S.U. Teacher-Scholar Award2002
Research Grant, Intramural Research Grant Program, Michigan State University 2001-02
Seed Grant, Institute on Race, Urbanization, and Social Injustice, Michigan State University2001
Ford Africanist Fellow, W.E.B DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research, HarvardUniversity1998-99
Columbia Society of Fellows (declined)1998
Fulbright Advanced Student Grant (France)1996-97
Lurcy Education Trust Fellowship1996-98
Rackham Graduate School Regent’s Fellowship1992-96
Council for European Studies Pre-Dissertation Grant1994-95
National Science Foundation Ethnology Training Grant 1993
Afro-American Studies Senior Thesis Award, PrincetonUniversity1992
Academic Experience
Co-Coordinator, France and the French Atlantic Research Team, ACLS Collaborative Research Network
I helped to set up and coordinate meetings of this team, which brought together scholars working in the U.S., Paris and the Université Antilles-Guyane, Martinique 2001-03
Mission Pour l’Etude des Politiques d’Immigration, Haut-Fonctionnaire 1997
I was a member of a twelve-person team in France that published the government report Pour une politique d’immigration juste et efficace (Paris: Documentation Française, 1997).
Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, Research Fellow 1996-98
(Centre Pour l’Etude des Politiques d’Immigration, d’Intégration, et de Citoyenneté (CEPIC))
Publications and Presentations
Books Published
1. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (Omohundro Institute for Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
Awards: *Frederick Douglass Prize, Gilder-LehrmanCenter (For the best book on Slavery, Resistance and Emancipation)
*Atlantic History Prize, American Historical Association
*John H. Fagg Prize, American Historical Association (For the best book on Spain, Portugal and Latin America)
* David Pickney Prize, Society for French Historical Studies (For the best book in French History)
2.Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (The Belknap Press of HarvardUniversity Press, 2004).
Awards: *A Best Book of 2004, Non-Fiction, Los Angeles Times
*A Notable Book of 2004, Christian Science Monitor
*First Runner-Up, Best Book, Adult Non-Fiction, Society of Midland Authors, 2004-2005
Selected Reviews: Christian Science Monitor, Harpers, Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Times Literary Supplement
3.With John Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A History in Documents (New York: Bedford Press, 2006).
Books Published in Translation
1. Les Vengeurs du Nouveau Monde: Histoire de la Revolution haïtienne (Rennes: Les Perséides, 2005). Translatation ofAvengers of the New World by Thomas Van Ruymbeke, with Preface by Jean Casimir.
Reviews:Le Monde,L’Humanité
2. Les esclaves de la République: l’histoire oubliée de la première émancipation, 1789-1794 (Paris: Calmann- Lévy, 1998). (This was a translation of a part of my dissertation, with some new introductory and concluding material I wrote in French).
Selected Reviews:Le Monde, Libération
Books in Preparation
1. A History of the Caribbean, with Richard Turits (under contract with University of North Carolina Press).
2. The Banjo: A Cultural History (under contract with Harvard University Press).
3. The Empire of French Soccer (manuscript in preparation).
Articles
1. “Capturing Louverture,” Small Axe23 (June 2007): 177-185.
2. “Histoires d’esclavage en France et aux Etats-Unis,” Esprit (February 2007): 71-80.
3. “Solitude’s Statue: Confronting the Past in the French Caribbean,” Outre-Mers350-351 (June 2006): 27-38.(An earlier version of this article was published as “Monumentos a Solitude: El enfrentamiento al pasado en el Caribe francófono,” in Historia y memoria: sociedad, cultura y vida cotidiana en Cuba, 1878-1917 (Havana: Centro Juan Marinello, 2003) (Translated into Spanish by Maria Teresa Ortega)).
4. “La revanche de l’Amérique: La politique de violence dans la révolution haïtienne,” Journal de la Société haïtienne d’histoire et de géographie (Spring 2005) (Translated into French by Jean Casimir.)
5. “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Re-Thinking the Intellectual History of the French Atlantic,” Social History31:1 (February 2006): 1-14. (An earlier version of this article was published as“Luzes Escravizadas: Repensando a história intelectual do Atlântico francês,” Estudios Afro-Asiáticos, Ano 26, No. 2 (2004): 331-354, translated into Portuguese by an editorial team at the journal.)
6. “La restauration de l’esclavage à la Guadeloupe, 1802-1802,” Cahiers du Brésil Contemporain 53/54 (2004): 149-162.
7. “’Citoyens et Amis!’ Esclavage, citoyenneté et République dans les Antilles françaises à l’époque révolutionnaire,” Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 58: 2 (March-April 2003): 281-304. (Translated into French by Aurélien Berra).
8. “Our Three Colors: The King, the Republic and the Political Culture of Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue,” Historical Reflections 29:1 (Spring 2003): 83-102.
9. “Is the French Caribbean Postcolonial?” Francophone Postcolonial Studies 1:2 (Autumn/Winter 2003): 46-50.
10. “Republican Racism and Anti-Racism: A Caribbean Genealogy,” French Politics, Culture and Society18:3 (Fall 2000): 5-17. (Reprinted in Herrick Chapman and Laura Frader, eds., Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference (New York: Berghahn Books, 2004.)
11. “Haunting Delgrès,” Radical History Review 78 (Fall 2000): 166-177. (An updated version of this essay is forthcoming in Daniel Walkowitz, ed., Race, Nation and Memory in Public Space (Durham: Duke University Press)).
12. “Carving History,” Journal of Post-Colonial and Imperial Studies, 1:1 (Spring 2000): 25-36. (Keynote address presented at the Conference on Post-Colonial and Imperial Studies, Michigan State University, February 13th 1999).
13. “La République Métissée: Citizenship, Colonialism, and the Borders of French History,” Cultural Studies 14:1 (Winter 2000): 15-34.
14. “Citizenship Through Assimilation and Citizenship Through Autonomy: Guadeloupe, 1792-1802,” Revista mexicana del Caribe V:10 (2000): 90-107.
15. “Republic At Sea: On the Margins of the New Europe,” Transition 79(June 1999): 64-79.
16. “‘The Price of Liberty’: Victor Hugues and the Administration of Freedom in Guadeloupe, 1794-1802,” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series, LVI: 2 (April 1999): 363-392 (Reprinted in Gary Kates, The French Revolution: Recent Debates & Controversies, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006)).
17. “L’Accueil des Réfugiés Haïtiens aux Etats-Unis,” Hommes et Migrations 1213, (May-June 1998): 47-59.
18. “A Spoonful of Blood: Blaming Haitians for AIDS,” Science as Culture 6:26 (Winter 1997): 7-43.
19. “Blood Stigma: Blaming Haitians for AIDS” Proteus 9:2 (Fall 1992): 20-24.
Book Chapters
1. “The French Atlantic,” in Jack Green and Philip Morgan, eds., Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
2. “Maroons in the Archives: The Uses of the Past in the French Caribbean,” in Francis X. Blouin, Jr. and William G. Roseberg, eds., Archives, Documentation and Institutions of Social Memory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 291-300.
3. “Citizen-Soldiers: Emancipation and Military Service in the Revolutionary French Caribbean,” in Philip Morgan and Chris Brown, eds., The Arming of Slaves from the Classical Era to the Civil War (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 2006).
4. “History’s Quarrel: The Future of the Past in the French Caribbean,” in Juanita de Barros, Audra Diptee and David V. Trotman, eds., Beyond Fragmentation: Perspectives on Caribbean History (Princeton: Markus Weiner Publishers, 2006), 213-230.
5. “The Revolutionary Period in Haiti, 1791-1804,” in Common Routes: St. Domingue – Louisiana, (Exhibit Catalogue) (New Orleans: Historical New Orleans Collection, 2006).
6. “In Search of the Haitian Revolution,” in Charles Forsdick and David Murphy, eds., Francophone Studies: Postcolonial Issues and the Study of the French-Speaking World (London: Arnold Publishers, 2003).
7. “Inscribing Race in the Revolutionary French Antilles,” in Tyler Stovall and Sue Peabody, ed.s, The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).
8. “The Citizen’s Trance: The Haitian Revolution and the Motor of History” in Peter Pels and Birgit Meyer, Magic and Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).
9. “Troubled Water: Rebellion and Republicanism in the French Caribbean, 1798-1802,” in Jim Horn, Jan Lewis, and Peter Onuf, eds., Thomas Jefferson and The Revolution of 1800 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2002).
10. “African Citizens: Slavery, Freedom and Migration during the French Revolution,” Migration Controls in 19th-century Europe, (London: Berghahn Books, 2002).
11. “The Promise of Revolution: St. Domingue and the Struggle for Autonomy in Guadeloupe, 1798-1802,” in David Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).
12. “Man’s Darkest Hours: Maleness, Travel, and Anthropology” in Ruth Behar, ed. Women Writing Culture, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
Invited Presentations
1. Book Talk on A Colony of Citizens, GilderLehrmanCenter, YaleUniversity, February 15, 2007.
2. “The Revolutionary Abolitionists of Haiti,” presented at HamiltonCollege, January 31, 2006 and at GrandValleyStateUniversity, February 28, 2007.
3. “Voltaire and Dessalines in the Theatre of the Atlantic,” presented at the Atlantic Studies Initiative, University of Michigan, December 1, 2006, at EmoryUniversity, January 25, 2007, and at ColgateUniversity, February 1, 2007.
4. “Coup de Boule, Coup de Théâtre: Zidane, Thuram and the Empire of French Soccer,” presented at Migration Studies Colloquium, Michigan State University, November 1, 2006 and Wisconsin French History Group, October 28, 2006.
5. “The Haitian Revolution and the Louisiana Purchase,” presented at the Latin American Library, TulaneUniversity, May 19, 2006.
6. “Des Lumières enchainées: La pensée politique des esclaves des Antilles françaises,” presented at Université Antilles-Guyane, Schoelcher, Martinique, March 15, 2006.
7. “’Vivre Libre Ou Mourir!’: Two Wars in the French Caribbean, 1802-1804,” keynote address,Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, 1750-1850, Atlanta, March 3, 2006.
8. “The Haitian Revolution and the Idea of Rights” presented at the Historic New Orleans Collection Symposium, “Common Routes: St. Domingue – Louisiana,” New Orleans, February 4, 2006.
9. “Religion and Revolution in Haiti,” presented at the FiggeMuseum, February 2, 2006.
10. “Dessalines Toro d’Haïti: The Archive of Vodou,” presented at University of Iowa, February 1, 2006.
11. “Voltaire, Zaïre, and Dessalines: Enlightenment Theatre in the French Atlantic,” presented at the French Studies Seminar, University of Chicago, January 27, 2006, at the Colonies Seminar, University of Iowa, February 2, 2006, as the “Donald Childs Lecturer in the Liberal Arts,” Pennsylvania State University, March 1, 2006, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 27, 2006. tre
12. “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Re-Thinking the Intellectual History of the French Atlantic” presented at Anthropology-History Colloquium, University of Michigan, January 21, 2005, and the Department of History Seminar, Johns Hopkins University, September 19, 2005.
13. “Atlantic Africans: Biographies from the Revolutionary French Caribbean,” presented at “The Other Americans: Rethinking the Black Diaspora in the New World,” New YorkUniversity, November 19, 2004.
14. “The Haitian Revolution and Empire,” presented at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, HarvardUniversity, November 5, 2004.
15.“The Haitian Revolution and Human Rights,” presented at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, September 17, 2004, at Western Michigan University, October 22, 2004 and at “1804-2004: Celebrating A Legacy,” Wright Museum of African-American History, Detroit, November 6, 2004.
16. “Avenging America: The Politics of Violence in the Haitian Revolution” presented at “The Haitian Revolution: Viewed 200 Years After,” John Carter Brown Library, 19 June 2004. (This paper was translated into French by Jean Casimir and published in the Revue de la Société haïtienne d’histoire et de géographie in Spring 2005 and is forthcoming in English in edited collection of conference papers.)
17. “Pour une histoire de la pensée politique des esclaves de Saint-Domingue,” presented at conference on “La traite, l’esclavage coloniale , la Révolution de Saint-Domingue et les droits de l’homme,” Université du Québec à Montréal, March 4-5, 2004.
18. “Louverture, Dessalines and the Quest for Sovereignty,” presented at conference on “The Haitian Revolution in Global Context,” CornellUniversity, April 16-17, 2004.
19. “Saints in Exile: The History of Haitian Vodou,” presented to History Association of Michigan State, October 28th, 2003.
20. “What Was Napoleon Thinking? Or, How a Startling Lack of Political Imagination Opened the Way for the Louisiana Purchase,” Presented at Conference on the Louisiana Purchase, Institute for Jefferson Studies, Monticello, October 24-25, 2003.
21. Chapters from Avengers of the New World presented at the Circum-Atlantic Studies Group, VanderbiltUniversity, October 2nd, 2003, and the Department of African-American Studies Colloqium, YaleUniversity, January 28, 2004.
22. “Calling Down the Law: Prophetic Rumor and the Politics of Slave Revolt in the Atlantic Empires,” presented at History Department Colloquim, SUNY-Binghamton, November 29th, and at the Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, November 30th, 2001.
23. “Les esclaves et la République: le cas de la révolte de Trois-Rivières en 1793” presented at the Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, Bisdary, Guadeloupe, April 15, 2000.
24. “Outre-Mer: The Archives of the French Caribbean” presented at conference on Resources in Caribbean History, Warren Center for American History, Harvard University, November 6-7, 1999.
25. “The Citizen’s Trance: Slave Revolution and the Idea of Rights,” presented at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research, HarvardUniversity, February 17th, 1999.
26. “La republicca meticcia: colonialismo, immigrazione e confini della storia francese” presented (with translator) in the Department of Anthropology, University of Florence, November 15, 1998.
27. “Une génealogie antillaise pour l’abolition de l’esclavage de 1848,” presented at the Weekly Colloquim of the Program in French Studies, New YorkUniversity, April 27, 1998.
28. “De l’esclavage à la citoyenneté pendant la Révolution Française,” presented at the Centre Pierre Leon d’Histoire Economique et Sociale, CNRS, Lyon, France, February 7, 1998.
29. “Slave Emancipation and the Idea of the Republic in the Age of Revolution,” presented at CharlesH.WarrenCenter for American History, Fellow’s Seminar, HarvardUniversity, October 30, 1997.
Reviews and Review Essays
1. “A Free Man,” Review of Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture, The Nation (April 16, 2007).
2. Review of David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, American Historical Review112:1 (February 2007): 165.
3.Review of Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny and Desire, in Slavery and Abolition26:3 (December 2005): 411-415.
4.Review of Tim Matthewson, A Pro-Slavery Foreign Policy in American Historical Review 110:4 (October 2005): 1167-1168.
5.Review of Frédéric Régent, Esclavage, métissage, liberté: La Révolution française en Guadeloupe, 1789-1802 on H-France 5:76 (July 2005).
6.Review of David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies on H-France 3:7 (February 2003).
7.“The Road to 1848: Interpreting French Anti-Slavery” in Slavery and Abolition 22:3 (December 2001): 150-157.
8. “Vodou and History” Comparative Studies in Society and History 43:1 (January 2001): 92-100.
9. Review of Myriam Cottias, ed. D’une abolition, l’autre: Anthologie raisonnée de textes consacrés à la seconde abolition de l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises in Histoire, Economie, Société 19:2 (2000): 299-300.
10. Review of Dora Weiner, The Citizen Patient in Revolutionary and Imperial Paris (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) in Comparative Studies in Society and History 38:2 (April 1996): 402-404.
Interviews
1. “The Haitian Revolution at the Crossroads: A Discussion Between Madison Smartt Bell and Laurent Dubois,” Common-place.org 7:4 (July 2007)
2. “Une histoire à transmettre,” interview with Lilian Thuram, with Michel Giraud, Marc-Olivier Padis, and Patrick Weil, Esprit (February 2007): 117-123.
Conference Presentations
1. “Haiti et les Amériques” presented at plenary session of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic Conference, Montreal, June 22, 2006.
2. “An Enslaved Enlightenment: Re-Thinking the Intellectual History of the French Atlantic,” presented at “Atlantic History: Soundings”, HarvardUniversity, August 11, 2005 and American Historical Association Meeting, Philadelphia, January 8, 2006.
3. “Des Lumières enchaînées. Repenser l'histoire intellectuelle de l'Atlantique français,” presented at “L’experience coloniale,” Nantes, June 21, 2005.
4. “The Political Culture of the Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue,” presented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Barbados, 18 May 2004.
5. “Calling Down the Law: Prophetic Rumor and the Politics of Slave Insurrection in the Caribbean,” presented at “Trans/Formations of the Disciplines: Evaluating the Project of Anthropology and History,”University of Michigan, Feb. 13, 2004.
6. Citizen-Soldiers: Emancipation and Military Service in the Revolutionary French Caribbean,” presented at the Organization of American Historians Meeting, Memphis, April 4 2003.
7. “The Meaning of Citizenship in Guadeloupe, 1792-1802,” presented at the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Historians, Cayenne, French Guyana, April 17-20, 2000.
8. “Anthropology, History and the Caribbean Roots of Modernity,” presented at conference on “Rhetorics of Culture,” University of Michigan, September 24-26, 1999.
9. “Slave Emancipation and Republican Racism during the French Revolution,” presented at the Society for French Historical Studies Annual Conference, WashingtonD.C., March 20, 1999.
10. “Raza, cuidadania, y servicio militar,” presented at the Taller de Historia, Archivio Provincial, Cienfuegos, Cuba, March 5-7, 1998.
11. “The Making of the ‘New Citizen’: Revolution, Slave Emancipation and Citizenship During the French Revolution,” presented at American Historical Association Meeting, Seattle, January 8-11, 1998.
Conference Comments and Roundtables
1. Participant in Roundtable on the Historiography of Caribbean Slavery, Conference on Latin American History, Atlanta, January 5, 2006.
2. Participant in Roundtable on “Teaching Atlantic History,” at “Atlantic History: Soundings,” WarrenCenter, HarvardUniversity, August 11, 2005.
3. Commentator on panels on “Caribbean Overviews: Production and Survival,” and “French Counter-Revolution” at “Atlantic History: Soundings,” WarrenCenter, HarvardUniversity, August 10 and 11, 2005.
4. Commentator on panel on “The History of Ideas,” at the conference on the Legacy of Colonization and Decolonization in Europe and the Americas, Sorbonne, Paris, June 20-21, 2001.
5. Commentator on a panel on “The Haitian Revolution” at the French Colonial Historical Society Meeting, M.S.U., May 31 2001.
6. Commentator for Panel on “Race and Citizenship in the French Caribbean”, Meeting of the Western Society for French History, UCLA, November 8-10, 2000.
Encyclopedia Entries
1. “Haiti” and “Caribbean” in Encyclopedia of Modern Europe: Europe, 1789-1914, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2006).
2.“Haitian Revolution” in Encyclopedia of the New American Nation, edited by Paul Finkelman (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005).
3. “Moreau de St. Mery,” “Jean-Baptiste Chavannes,” “Charles Leclerc” and “Montesquieu” in Encyclopedia of World Slavery, edited by Junius Rodriquez (New York: Clio Press, 1997).
Radio/Newspaper/Television
1. Head Consultant for Koval Films Documentary on the Haitian Revolution, 2007
2. Interview for BBC Documentary “Race Across Time,” January 2007.