The last decade of the 19th century was an important moment in Guadeloupean politics as this was when Black Guadeloupeans joined the political realm of the colony under the banner of a radical ideology—socialism. More than a political party, the Guadeloupean Workers’ Movement sought to realize the full emancipation of the formerly enslaved men and women and their descendants. Guadeloupean socialists would rise to power by the turn of the 20th century as their charismatic leader, Hégésippe Légitimus, stood out as one of the most influential politicians in the colony. From its inception, Guadeloupean women had an important role within this larger movement, whether in their propaganda or its rich associative network, even though French women did not have any civic rights. This talk will focus on how Guadeloupean women described their own activism within the different socialist newspapers between 1891 and 1905.
Was the revolutionary Olympe de Gouges insane? According to some 19th-century doctors and historians, such as Michelet or Philippe Pinel, the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791) was allegedly afflicted with a form of madness known as paranoïa reformatoria—a mental illness said to particularly affect women during periods of historical instability, leading them to incessantly seek societal reform in pursuit of gender equality. Described as an excessively “ardent” woman by the renowned Dr. Alfred Guillois, who dedicated a thesis to her supposed psychological disorders, she was deemed to suffer from “excessive agitation,” likely exacerbated by her menstrual cycle (according to Guillois, once again). This analysis will explore how the 19th century fabricated a diagnosis of insanity for a woman who sought nothing more than gender equality.
How does a noble woman in the 17th century get locked up in a convent for sixteen years on order of King Louis XIV? Charlotte de Caumont La Force was a spirited member of the French aristocracy who on numerous occasions pushed the boundaries placed on women, both in her life and in her popular novels. Men fell in love with her and ran afoul of their fathers in wanting to marry her, a penniless daughter of an illustrious noble family, forcing the king to intervene on more than one occasion. In the meantime, La Force published popular historical novels and fairytales that portrayed intelligent women with strong opinions. What was it that pushed the king over the edge and landed La Force in forced confinement in a convent in 1687?
The catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, caused an unprecedented level of destruction, but it has also generated a remarkable number of literary works that directly address the impact of this devastating event on the country and its people. In this talk, I would like to discuss a few of these works, notably Edwidge Danticat’s Create Dangerously (2010), Dany Laferrière’s Tout bouge autour de moi (2010), and Yanick Lahens’s Failles (2010), by focusing on the role and mission of a writer during times of extraordinary crisis.
From Atlanta, Georgia based in Detroit, Michigan. Her current interdisciplinary painting practice is an evolving response to the human experience, concerned with issues of race in the American landscape and the reality of life in her own skin. The artist seeks to engage with the community around her and recently exhibiting work at the 101st Michigan House of Representatives in Lansing in 2021 and 2022, at Olayami Dabls Mbad African Bead Museum and at The Feminist Art Museum in 2020. She was an exhibiting artist and speaker in the Race Forward Facing Race Conference in Fall 2016 at the Hilton Atlanta and she exhibited artwork at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History from July-December of 2023.