Month: February 2016

Holy Discontent: These Things Make Me Sad!

Dr. Celucien Joseph Caring, Citizenship, Community, Comparative Religion, Compassion, Freedom, Humanism, Social Evil, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,
Earlier in a post today on Facebook, I wrote that “sometimes words fail to communicate what we want to articulate.” Although words still fail me, here are the things I have been contemplating about today (Language will always remain a fallible vehicle to clarify effectively the human mind, communicate adequately the human thought, and action):

Holy Discontent: These Things Make Me Sad!

There are many things in this world that are very depressing to me, but the following fifteen issues are notorious:
1. The depressing living condition of the Haitian people in Haiti.
2. Politics in Haiti.
3. Politics in the United States.
4. The Race Problem in America.
5. The failure of Evangelical Christianity in America to care for the poor, the needy, and underprivileged families.
6. The unholy alliance between Evangelical Christianity and the Bourgeoisie class in America.
7. The failure of Evangelical Christianity to practice justice and be in solidarity with the oppressed and disheartened.
8. The disastrous effects of globalization and free market capitalism.
9.  The end of (spiritual) piety and the triumph of secularism and atheism.
10. The end of compassion and love.
11. The end of human hospitality and community.
12. The triumph of (social) evil in our society and the world.
13. The fear of the stranger and difference.
14. The desecration of life and dehumanization of people.
15. The continuous battle of people of color–black people in particular-in this country to acknowledge their humanity and show that they too count in America.

Hope for Today Education Fund

Dr. Celucien Joseph Education, Haiti, Haitian Familes, Haitian History, Haitian Literature, The poor, Uncategorized , , , , ,

Hope for Today Education Fund

Click here to support this project via Gofundme

https://www.gofundme.com/vujgzc58

 

In our September trip to Corail, Port-Margot (before school opens), we distributed school supplies to underprivileged families and students. We were able to pass out 122 backpacks and a school kit containing notebooks, color crayons, pencils, pens, rulers, erasers, etc. Unfortunately, because of our limited resources, we were unable to serve and reach out to all the 450 students at the local school, and other children and families in need in the community.

Call for Papers: “Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa”

Dr. Celucien Joseph Call for Papers, Haitian Studies, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

Call for Papers: “Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa” Edited by Drs. Celucien L. Joseph, Glodel Mezilas, Jean Eddy Saint Paul, and Jhon Byron

Extended Deadline: Thursday, March 31

Price-Mars

 

Jean Price-Mars (1876 – 1969), Haitian physician, ethnographer, diplomat, educator, historian, politician, was a towering intellectual in Haitian history and cultural studies, and a Pan Africanist who called to reevaluate the contributions of Africa in universal civilizations and to revalorize African retentions and cultural practices in the Black diaspora, especially on Haitian soil. Through his writings, Price-Mars, whom Leopold Sedar Senghor called “the Father of Negritude,” sought to establish connecting links between Africa and the Black Diaspora, and the shared history and struggle between people of African descent in the Diaspora.

For many scholars, Price-Mars is the father of Haitian ethnology and Dean of Haitian Studies in the twentieth-century, and arguably, the most influential Haitian thinker that has graced the “Black Republic” since the death of Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin in 1911. In Haitian thought, Price-Mars has exercised an enduring intellectual and ideological influence on the young Haitian intellectuals and writers of the generation of the American Occupation in Haiti (1915-1934) and the post-Occupation culture from the 1930s to 1970s. He is especially known for launching a cultural nationalism and an anti-imperial movement against the brutal American military forces in Haiti.

The writings of Price-Mars were instrumental in challenging the Haitian intellectual of his leadership role in the Haitian society, and in promoting national consciousness and unity among Haitians of all social classes and against their American oppressor. Comparatively, his work was a catalyst in the process of shaping and reshaping Haitian cultural identity and reconsidering the viability of the Afro-Haitian faith of Vodou as religion among the so-called World religions. His thought anticipated what is known today as postcolonialism and decolonization.

Moreover, scholars have also identified Price-Mars as the Francophone counterpart of W.E.B. Du Bois for his activism, scholarly rigor, leadership efficiency, and his unremitting efforts to challenge Western racial history, ideology, and white supremacy in the modern world. Unapologetically, Price-Mars challenged the doctrine of white supremacy and the ideological construction of Western history by demonstrating the equality and dignity of the races and all people, and their achievements in the human historical narrative. As Du Bois, he was a transdisciplinary scholar, boundary-crosser, and cross-cultural theorist; in an unorthodox way, he had brought in conversation various disciplines including anthropology, ethnography, geography, sociology, history, religion, philosophy, race theory, and literature to study the human condition and the most pressing issues facing the nations and peoples of the world, as well as the possible implications they may bear upon us in the postcolonial moment.

“Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa” is a special volume on Jean Price-Mars that reassesses the importance of his thought and legacy, and the implications of his ideas in the twenty-first century’s culture of political correctness, the continuing challenge of race and racism, and imperial hegemony in the modern world. Price-Mars’s thought is also significant for the renewed scholarly interests in Haiti and Haitian Studies in North America, and the meaning of contemporary Africa in the world today. This volume explores various dimensions in Price-Mars’ thought and his role as medical doctor, historian, anthropologist, cultural critic, public intellectual, politician, pan-Africanist, and humanist.

Hence, the goal of this book is fourfold: 1) The book will explore the contributions of Price-Mars to Haitian history, thought, culture, literature, politics, education, health, etc., 2) This volume will investigate the complex relationships between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in Price-Mars’ historical writings, 3) It studies Price-Mars’ engagement with Western history and the problem of the “racist narrative,” and 4) Finally, the book will highlight Price-Mars’ contributions to Postcolonialism, Africana Studies, and Pan-Africanism.

If you would like to contribute a book chapter to this important volume, along with your CV, please submit a 300 word abstract by Thursday, March 31, to Dr. Celucien Joseph @ celucienjoseph@gmail.com

Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance in the first week of April, 2016. We are looking for original and unpublished essays for this book. Translations of Price-Mars’ works in the English language are also welcome. Potential topics to be addressed include (but are not limited to) the following:

I. Price-Mars as Historian
• Price-Mars as Historian
• Price-Mars’ engagement with Western history
• Price-Mars’ interpretation of Haitian history
• The function of Haitian heroes and heroines in Price-Mars historical writings
• The Origin (s) and History of Haiti and Dominican Republic in Price-Mars’ works
• Particularism and Universalism in Price-Mars’ historical writings

II. Price-Mars as Cultural Critic and Public Intellectual in Haitian Society
• Price-Mars as cultural theorist and literary critic
• The role of Price-Mars’ thought in the Haitian Renaissance in the first half of the twentieth-century
• Price-Mars and the Crisis of Haitian Intellectuals
• Price-Mars and the Crisis of Haitian bourgeoisie-elite
• Price-Mars, Vodou, and the Haitian culture
• The Haitian peasant in the writings of Price-Mars
• The Education of the Haitian masses in the writings of Price-Mars
• The problem of Race in Price-Mars’ writings
• Haitian Women in the thought of Price-Mars
• Price-Mars’ contributions as Medical doctor in Haitian society.

III. Price-Mars as Politician
• The Political career and goals of Jean Price-Mars
• Price-Mars, Haiti’s Ambassador to the nations
• Price-Mars and the American occupation and American imperialism
• The political philosophy and democratic ideas of Price-Mars
• Nationalism and Patriotism in Price-Mars’ thought

IV. Price-Mars as Pan-Africanist
• African history or the meaning of Africa in the writings of Price-Mars
• The Black Diaspora in the thought of Price-Mars
• Price-Mars’ Postcolonial Rhetoric and Linguistic Strategy
• The Vindication and Rehabilitation of the Black Race
• The Role and Contributions of Pre-African civilizations to world civilizations
• Price-Marsian Negritude or Blackness

About the editors

Jean Price-Mars (1876 – 1969), Haitian physician, ethnographer, diplomat, educator, historian, politician, was a towering intellectual in Haitian history and cultural studies, and a Pan Africanist who called to reevaluate the contributions of Africa in universal civilizations and to revalorize African retentions and cultural practices in the Black diaspora, especially on Haitian soil. Through his writings, Price-Mars, whom Leopold Sedar Senghor called “the Father of Negritude,” sought to establish connecting links between Africa and the Black Diaspora, and the shared history and struggle between people of African descent in the Diaspora.

For many scholars, Price-Mars is the father of Haitian ethnology and Dean of Haitian Studies in the twentieth-century, and arguably, the most influential Haitian thinker that has graced the “Black Republic” since the death of Joseph Auguste Anténor Firmin in 1911. In Haitian thought, Price-Mars has exercised an enduring intellectual and ideological influence on the young Haitian intellectuals and writers of the generation of the American Occupation in Haiti (1915-1934) and the post-Occupation culture from the 1930s to 1970s. He is especially known for launching a cultural nationalism and an anti-imperial movement against the brutal American military forces in Haiti.

The writings of Price-Mars were instrumental in challenging the Haitian intellectual of his leadership role in the Haitian society, and in promoting national consciousness and unity among Haitians of all social classes and against their American oppressor. Comparatively, his work was a catalyst in the process of shaping and reshaping Haitian cultural identity and reconsidering the viability of the Afro-Haitian faith of Vodou as religion among the so-called World religions. His thought anticipated what is known today as postcolonialism and decolonization.

Moreover, scholars have also identified Price-Mars as the Francophone counterpart of W.E.B. Du Bois for his activism, scholarly rigor, leadership efficiency, and his unremitting efforts to challenge Western racial history, ideology, and white supremacy in the modern world. Unapologetically, Price-Mars challenged the doctrine of white supremacy and the ideological construction of Western history by demonstrating the equality and dignity of the races and all people, and their achievements in the human historical narrative. As Du Bois, he was a transdisciplinary scholar, boundary-crosser, and cross-cultural theorist; in an unorthodox way, he had brought in conversation various disciplines including anthropology, ethnography, geography, sociology, history, religion, philosophy, race theory, and literature to study the human condition and the most pressing issues facing the nations and peoples of the world, as well as the possible implications they may bear upon us in the postcolonial moment.

Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa is a special volume on Jean Price-Mars that reassesses the importance of his thought and legacy, and the implications of his ideas in the twenty-first century’s culture of political correctness, the continuing challenge of race and racism, and imperial hegemony in the modern world. Price-Mars’ thought is also significant for the renewed scholarly interests in Haiti and Haitian Studies in North America, and the meaning of contemporary Africa in the world today. This volume explores various dimensions in Price-Mars’ thought and his role as medical doctor, historian, anthropologist, cultural critic, public intellectual, politician, pan-Africanist, and humanist.

Hence, the goal of this book is fourfold: 1) The book will explore the contributions of Price-Mars to Haitian history, thought, culture, literature, politics, education, health, etc., 2) This volume will investigate the complex relationships between Haiti and the Dominican Republic in Price-Mars’ historical writings, 3) It studies Price-Mars’ engagement with Western history and the problem of the “racist narrative,” and 4) Finally, the book will highlight Price-Mars’ contributions to Postcolonialism, Africana Studies, and Pan-Africanism.

If you would like to contribute a book chapter to this important volume, along with your CV, please submit a 300 word abstract by Monday, February 29, 2016, to Dr. Celucien Joseph @ celucienjoseph@gmail.com, and Dr. Jean Eddy Saint Paul @ jsaintpaul@yahoo.fr
Successful applicants will be notified of acceptance in the first week of April, 2016. We are looking for original and unpublished essays for this book. Translations of Price-Mars’ works in the English language are also welcome. Potential topics to be addressed include (but are not limited to) the following:

I. Price-Mars as Historian
• Price-Mars as Historian
• Price-Mars’ engagement with Western history
• Price-Mars’ interpretation of Haitian history
• The function of Haitian heroes and heroines in Price-Mars historical writings
• The Origin (s) and History of Haiti and Dominican Republic in Price-Mars’ works
• Particularism and Universalism in Price-Mars’ historical writings

II. Price-Mars as Cultural Critic and Public Intellectual in Haitian Society
• Price-Mars as cultural theorist and literary critic
• The role of Price-Mars’ thought in the Haitian Renaissance in the first half of the twentieth-century
• Price-Mars and the Crisis of Haitian Intellectuals
• Price-Mars and the Crisis of Haitian bourgeoisie-elite
• Price-Mars, Vodou, and the Haitian culture
• The Haitian peasant in the writings of Price-Mars
• The Education of the Haitian masses in the writings of Price-Mars
• The problem of Race in Price-Mars’ writings
• Haitian Women in the thought of Price-Mars
• Price-Mars’ contributions as Medical doctor in Haitian society.

III. Price-Mars as Politician
• The Political career and goals of Jean Price-Mars
• Price-Mars, Haiti’s Ambassador to the nations
• Price-Mars and the American occupation and American imperialism
• The political philosophy and democratic ideas of Price-Mars
• Nationalism and Patriotism in Price-Mars’ thought

IV. Price-Mars as Pan-Africanist
• African history or the meaning of Africa in the writings of Price-Mars
• The Black Diaspora in the thought of Price-Mars
• Price-Mars’ Postcolonial Rhetoric and Linguistic Strategy
• The Vindication and Rehabilitation of the Black Race
• The Role and Contributions of Pre-colonial African civilizations to world civilizations
• Price-Marsian Negritude or Blackness

About the Editors

Dr. Celucien L. Joseph is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Indian River State College. He received his Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Texas at Dallas, where he studied Literary Studies and Intellectual History. Professor Joseph also holds an M.A. in French language and literature from the University of Louisville. In addition, he holds degrees in theological and religious studies. He serves in the editorial board and Chair of The Journal of Pan African Studies Regional Advisory Board; he also the curator of “Haiti: Then and Now.” He edited JPAS special issue on Wole Soyinka entitled “Rethinking Wole Soyinka: 80 Years of Protracted Engagement” (2015). Dr. Joseph is interested in the intersections of literature, history, race, religion, theology, and history of ideas.

Professor Joseph is the author of several books including Race, Religion, and the Haitian Revolution: Essays on Faith, Freedom, and Decolonization (2012), From Toussaint to Price-Mars: Rhetoric, Race, and Religion in Haitian Thought (2013), Haitian Modernity and Liberative Interruptions: Discourse on Race, Religion, and Freedom (2013), God Loves Haiti (2015). He has also contributed several encyclopedia entries and scholarly articles in various journals. His forthcoming book is entitled Thinking in Public: Faith, Secular Humanism, and Development in Jacques Roumain (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2016). He is the lead editor of a forthcoming two volume anthology entitled Vodou in Haitian Memory: The Idea and Representation of Vodou in Haitian Imagination (Collection 1), and Vodou in the Haitian Experience: A Black Atlantic Perspective (Collection 2)—to be published by Lexington Books in 2016. He is currently working on a volume on Jean-Bertrand Aristide, former President of Haiti and Catholic-Priest Liberation Theology entitled Aristide: A Theological and Political Introduction (under contract with Fortress Press).

Academic Bio of Jean Eddy Saint Paul, PhD, Sociologist,
Professor of Sociology and Politics
Universidad of Guanajuato (Guanajuato, Mexico).

Jean Eddy Saint Paul is a Haitian scholar and social scientist. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from El Colegio de México (2008), an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá (2002) and a B.A. in Social Work from the State University of Haiti. Dr. Saint Paul is a Professor of Politics and Sociology whose specializations include Religions, Citizenship, and Democracy, and Elites, Political Discourse and Ideologies. He currently works as a Professor for the Division of Law, Politics and Government at the Universidad of Guanajuato (Guanajuato, Mexico). He is also a regular Professor at the Inter-Institutional Doctorate (Ph.D.) Program in Law. Dr. Saint Paul is one of the founders of the Doctorate Program in Law, Politics and Government, and the Master Program in Political Analysis at the Universidad de Guanajuato. He usually teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs and offers courses such as “Political Science”, “Sociological Theory”, “Politics and Religions”, “Political Theory” and “Qualitative Research Methods.” Before joining the University of Guanajuato, Dr. Saint Paul was a visiting professor of “Comparative Politics” and “Political Theory” at the Ph.D. Program in Political Science and Master Program in Sociology at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

Prof. Saint Paul’s work covers an unusually broad spectrum of topic including Historical Sociology of Politics, Politics and Religions (Secular State for Civil Liberties and Human Rights), Civil Society, Politics of Memory and Citizenship, Civil Society and Democratization from a Political & Sociological Perspective, Sociology of Violence, Patrimonialism, Neopatrimonialism, and Politics of the Belly. A Member of the National System of Scholars-CONACyT, level 1, Professor Jean Eddy Saint Paul was in 2013 a “Visiting Scholar” at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, Va. United States of America) and previously in 2011 was a “Visiting Fellow” at the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales (Centre for International Studies and Research (CERI), SciencesPo, CNRS, Paris.

Dr. Saint Paul conducts research on Latin America and the Caribbean, and has published his works in prestigious national and international press, like Karthala (Paris), Maison des sciences de l’homme (Paris) and El Colegio de México (Mexico). Among his recent publications on Haiti, it is important to mention: Chimè et Tontons Macoutes comme milices armées en Haïti. Essai sociologique, published in 2015 by the Cidihca press in Montreal (Québec), Canada; “La laïcité en Haïti. Approche sociologique des erreurs épistémologiques et théoriques dans les débats récents,” published in the international Peer Review Journal: Histoire, Monde et Cultures Religieuses (HMC), Thematic Number: Etat, Religions et Politique en Haïti (XVIII-XXI siècles), # 29, April 15, 2014, Paris: Karthala, pp. 83-100. ISBN: 9782811111540. Currently, he is working on two new books: Duvalierism, Rhetoric and Political Practices, and Civil Society and Politics of Memory in Haiti”.
Prof. Saint Paul is fluent in Haitian Creole, French, English and Spanish.
https://ugto.academia.edu/JeanEddySaintPaul.

Email address: jsaintpaul@yahoo.fr or jsaint@colmex.mx
Professional link: https://ugto.academia.edu/JeanEddy
His new book: Chimè et Tontons Macoutes comme milices armées en Haïti. Essai Sociologique. Montreal, Ca.: Cidihca, 2015.

http://lenouvelliste.com/…/Chime-et-tontons-macoutes-la-log…

http://lenouvelliste.com/…/Chime-et-tontons-macoutes-la-log…

Skype: Jean Eddy Saint Paul (Charlottesville)

Bio for Glodel Mezillas, PhD

Glodel Mezillas is a political scientist, diplomat,
theorist, philosopher, and a scholar of Caribbean and Latin American Studies. He received his PhD in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM), a Master’s degree in International Studies from Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2001-2002. He also studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) of the Université d’Etat d’Haïti, UEH), from which he received a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Letters, and at the Université Toussaint Louverture a B.A. in Political Sciences He has also done special studies in Diplomacy and International Politics at Escuela Diplomática de Madrid, and in International Public Administration (ONU) at the École Nationale d’Administration de Paris, Institut des Relations Internationales du Cameroun (IRIC),and at the Institut des Nations Unies de la Recherche et la Formation (UNITAR), he specialized in the field of United Nations System.

Dr. Mezillas has served as Professor of Genealogy of Postcolonialism at Instituto de Estudios Críticos, of International Relations and the Caribbean Studies at the Institut d’Études et Recherches Africaines (IERAH) de l’Université d’État d’Haiti, of International Relations at Université Polyvalente (Haiti), and Professor of Political Sciences and Epistemology of Social Sciences at the Université Toussaint Louverture. His teaching and scholarly research interests include Black Diaspora, Cultural, Political Theory and Epistemology of Social Sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Dr. Mezillas is a prolific writer and has published in three languages English, Spanish, and French. His books including Que signifie philosopher en Haïti? Un nouveau concept du Vodou (L’Harmattan, 2015), El trauma colonial, entre la memoria y el discurso. Pensar (desde) el Caribe (EDUCAVISION, 2015), Qu’est-ce qu’une crise. Eléments d’une théorie critique (L’Harmattan, 2014), Civilisation et discours d’altérité. Enquête sur l’Islam, l’Occident et le Vodou (EDUCAVISION, 2014), Généalogie de la théorie sociale en Amérique Latine (Editions de l’Université d’Etat d’Haïti, 2013), and Haití más allá del espejo (Editorial Praxis, 2011).

E-mail address: glodelmezilas@hotmail.com

Bio for Jhon Picard Byron, PhD

Dr Byron is a Professor and Researcher at the Faculté d’Ethnologie at the State University of Haiti (UEH). His research interests are centered around Jean Price Mars’s work and legacy as well as the Construction of culture and citizenry in Haiti and the Caribbean. He is the Chair of a Research Unit working on Language, Discourses and Representations (LADIREP) and the Coordinator of the Masters Programme in Social Anthropology at the Faculté d’Ethnologie. His most recent publication is “La pensée de Jean Price-Mars : entre construction politique de la nation et affirmation de l’identité culturelle haïtienne.” In Production du savoir et construction sociale. L’ethnologie en Haïti. He has two forthcoming publications: one on the influence of Haitian Anthropology at the origin of François Duvalier’s discourse and the other on Jean Price Mars and the transformation of Haitian Anthropology: challenges and stakes.

E-mail: jpicard.byron@gmail.com

Sincerely,
Celucien L. Joseph, PhD
Assistant Professor of English
Indian River State College
Curator of “Haiti: Then and Now”
http://www.haitithenandnowhtn.com/

Jean Eddy Saint Paul, PhD
Professor of Sociology and Politics
Universidad of Guanajuato (Guanajuato, Mexico)

Email address: jsaintpaul@yahoo.fr or jsaint@colmex.mx
Professional link: https://ugto.academia.edu/JeanEddy

Glodel Mezilas, PhD
Counselor and Diplomat
Haitian Embassy in Spain

Jhon Picard Byron, PhD
Professor and Researcher at Faculté d’Ethnologie
State University of Haiti (UEH).

 

Poetic Lament!

Dr. Celucien Joseph Community, Human solidarity, Humanism, Uncategorized , , , , ,

In “Choruses from the Rock,” eminent poet T. S. Eliot laments over the lack of a sense of community in Western societies:

“What life have you if you have no life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of God…

And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour
Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads but settled nowhere.
Nor does the family even move about together,
But every one would have his motorcycle,
And daughters ride away on casual pillions.”

Marchons Unis!

Dr. Celucien Joseph Haiti, Haitian Familes, Haitian History, Uncategorized , , , ,

It brings great joy when other people recognize your work and contributions to society, hoping that they’re potentially transforming people’s lives and enhancing human relations. I just found out today that the Haitian magazine named Marchons Unis has published an article about me and the work of Hope for Today Outreach  in Haiti.  They even have me on the front cover of the magazine for the October-December 2015 issue.  I’m humble by this great act of public recognition.  Let’s continue to serve, give, love, and collaborate together to alleviate human suffering and poverty in Haiti and contribute to sustaining and long-lasting development.  Marchons Unis!

 

Marchons Unis

On Race, Writing, and Publishing (Part I)

Dr. Celucien Joseph Uncategorized

On Race, Writing, and Publishing (Part I)

It seems to me the traditional approach scholars, academics, activists, cultural critics, civil servants, politicians, ministers, etc. have taken to effect racial healing and reconciliation in this country have been wrong. The current scholarly methods that seek to ameliorate race-based dialogue and relations among people of different racial and ethnic groups are not producing any positive and transformative results in society.

For example, both scholars and publishing houses are complicit in infuriating the race problem in this culture. Because our free market capitalism is also driven by a race-based ideology, the need to produce race-based materials to satisfy the race-based consumers is urgent and strongly encouraged. Race-based scholars/writers make a career by producing race-based materials to satisfy the demand of the publishing press and the consumer.

Because both scholars and publishing companies operate from this shared racial ideology, our current race-based products and texts do not contribute meaningfully and constructively to the urgency of racial harmony and the deconstruction of this shared racial ideology. This unholy alliance is destructive to human flourishing and societal growth.

We need new methods—both theoretical and practical— to rethink about the relationship between writing and publishing, scholarship and society. We need new methods to reassess the conundrum of race, to engage in healthy and non-threatening race-based conversations, and to produce new products that are emancipative in content and intent.

We need to reimagine the role of scholarship and writing in the twenty-first century society and culture, as to foster sustaining and long-lasting public transformation, and contribute to a more equitable civil society, and balanced political order. Engaged scholarship and publishing that operate in the best interest of the public…toward the common good must not follow the race-based free market capitalism. Engaged scholarship and effective publishing must aim at advancing the cause of human freedom, the liberation of the mind, and the ultimate emancipation from our race-based free market capitalism and race-based publishing.

On the other hand, we recognize that race-blind scholarship is not sound and emancipative scholarship. Colorblind writing is not effective writing at all; it is not advancing human knowledge and learning. Colorblind scholarship or writing does not promote conscientization among those living in the margins of society nor is it sending liberative signals to the oppressed about his or her oppressor, the roots of his/her oppression, and about the creators of social evils to which he/she is a victim.

To be continued…

What are you doing for Haiti?

Dr. Celucien Joseph Uncategorized

It is one thing to say “I love Haiti.” It is another thing to say I’m going to use my resources, talents, and skills to alleviate poverty in Haiti and contribute to a more equitable and transformative civil and political society in Haiti.

Love without action is meaningless. I feel like preaching tonight… to my Haitian brothers and sisters. lol

As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?”

On Intellectual Reparations: Hegel, Franklin Tavarès, Susan Buck-Morss, Revolutionary Haiti, and Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA)

Dr. Celucien Joseph Philosophy, Uncategorized, Western Anthropology, Western Philosophy , , , , , , , , , , ,

On Intellectual Reparations: Hegel, Franklin Tavarès, Susan Buck-Morss, Revolutionary Haiti, and Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA)

 by Celucien L. Joseph, PhD

 

About six to seven years ago in a short note, I voiced my concern about the decision of the Board of Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA) to grant the Frantz Fanon 2009 Book Award to Susan Buck-Morss for her brilliant book on Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009). Professor Buck-Morss’ basic thesis is that the revolutionary events (1791-1803) in Saint-Domingue-Haiti had substantially influenced Georg Hegel’s master-slave dialectic in his major work “The Phenomenology of Spirit,” which he published in 1807—only four years after the Haitian Revolution—and that revolutionary Haiti had a profound impact on Western history of ideas and universal history, respectively. While Buck-Morss mentioned the writings of the African historian and intellectual Pierre Franklin Tavarès in her work, she failed to give serious attention to his major claims concerning Hegel and Haitian History.

The CPA board, as I mentioned in my previous message to them, has also failed to recognize the meritorious contribution of the African historian who was actually the first scholar to argue, in a series of articles based on his doctoral dissertation (1989) at Sorbonne, that Hegel’s dialectic thesis was influenced by the Haitian Revolution, and that Haiti had had a tremendous impact on Enlightenment modernity, and the history of thought in the West. The Frantz Fanon 2009 Book Award should have been given to Dr. Pierre Franklin—not Prof. Susan Buck-Morss whose thesis is heavily dependent on Tavarès.

In May 1992, the Haitian journal Chemins Critiques, Revue Haïtiano-Caraíbéenne, published an excerpt of Tavares’s 1989 doctoral dissertation ; the article is entitled “Hegel et Haiti ou le silence de Hegel sur Saint Domingue” (Chemins Critiques, Revue Haïtiano-Caraíbéenne, Vol. 2, No. 3, mai 1992, pp. 113-131.) The chief editor of the journal at that time was the renowned Haitian sociologist, anthropologist, and theologian Laënnec Hurbon; Georges Castera, Syto Cavé, Delano Gilbert, Monique Lafontant, Franklin Midy, Bérard Cénatus, Jacky Dahomay, Laënnec Hurbon, Georges Mauvois, Michèle D. Pierre-Louis, and Frantz Voltaire served on the editorial board of Chemins Critiques. Below is the first page of Tavares’ article that was published in Chemins Critiques:

Hegel and Haiti 2

(The interested reader is encouraged to consult some of Pierre Franklin Tavarès’ writings on the subject matter: “Hegel, critique de l’Afrique : introduction aux études critiques sur l’Afrique” (PhD dissertation, Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 19989) ; the article is entitled “Hegel et Haiti ou le silence de Hegel sur Saint Domingue” (Chemins Critiques, Revue Haïtiano-Caraíbéenne, Vol. 2, No. 3, mai 1992, pp. 113-131.) ; “Hegel et l’abbé Grégoire : question noire et révolution française” (Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 1993) ; “À propos de Hegel et Haïti Lettre de Pierre Franklin Tavares à Jean Ristat” (L’Humanité, 2006.
By contrast, eight years later after the publication of Tavares’s article in Chemins Critiques, in Summer 2000, Susan Buck-Morss would publish the influential essay entitled “Hegel and Haiti” in Critical Inquiry (Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer, 2000), pp. 821-865)—published by The University of Chicago Press. Below is the first page of Buck-Morss’ essay, which she would expand in her 2009 book, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History:
Susan Buck-Morss

Susan Buck-Morss.jpg 2

In my doctoral dissertation, “The Haitian Turn: Haiti, Black ‘The Haitian Turn’: Haiti, the Black Atlantic, and Black Transnational Consciousness” (University of Texas at Dallas, 2012), I coined the expression “The Haitian Turn” to reclaim the significant impact of Haiti and Haitian history in the emergence of Black internationalism, Pan Africanism, and Black radicalism, as well as Haiti’s major impact on modern history of ideas in the West and the Black Atlantic; I also coined the theoretical concept of “black transnational consciousness” to explain and analyze the nature, content, and workings of black internationalism in the first half of the twentieth-century. In the same line of thought, I rightly acknowledged Tavarès’ vital contributions to scholarship and Haitian revolutionary studies. Subsequently, in a major article I wrote about the recent studies on the Haitian Revolution, I gave the credit to where it is due—to Dr. Tavarès (See, “’The Haitian Turn’: An Appraisal of Recent Literary and Historiographical Works on the Haitian Revolution,” The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5:6 (September 2012):37-55)

Allow me to reproduce below an important paragraph from the essay noted above:

In a 1989 Sorbonne dissertation, “Hegel, critique de l’Afrique,” Pierre Franklin Tavares strikingly argues that the revolution in Saint Domingue and the birth of Haiti—as a double event—were the main historical sources (but not unique) of the famous “figure of consciousness” entitled “Domination and bondage of the Phenomenology of Spirit,” which incorrectly named “the dialectic of master and slave.” Building on Tavares’s thesis, more recently, in an article (“Hegel and Haiti”) published in Critical Inquiry in 2000 and later extended in book form as Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History in 2009, Susan Buck-Morss contends that the events of revolutionary Haiti inspired the young Hegel distinctively in his development of the lord-servant dialectic, and substantially provides the concrete experimental resources for theorizing freedom and the process of history. She also insists that the Haitian Revolution has contributed significantly to European critical discourses on subjectivity, freedom, identity, and consciousness. Although the news about the revolution was censored in the French media after 1803, Buck-Morss informs us, “newspapers and journals in Britain (also in the United States and Poland) highlighted the events of the final revolutionary struggle in Saint-Domingue” (43-44). Buck-Morss asserts, “The Haitian Revolution was the crucible, the trial by fire for the ideals of the French Enlightenment. And every European who was part of the bourgeois reading public knew it” (44).

Furthermore, in the same article, I also wrote: “Buck-Morss and Tavares have convincingly demonstrated Hegel’s philosophy of freedom and philosophy of right (Nesbitt, “Troping Toussaint” 19-33) also were dependent on the Haitian Revolution, a signal event in human narrative of liberty that provided him the empirical data to think through freedom.”

Interestingly, in a recent essay, “Global History and The African: A New Reading of Hegel,” published this month (February, 2016) in Tanbou, Haitian writer Wilson Décembre, who understands the value and imperative of intellectual reparation, wrote these important paragraphs about the implication of Pierre Frankly Tavarès’s thesis in regard to Hegel, Haiti, and universal history:

“Franklin Tavarès has written a series of articles that grew out of his work on a doctoral dissertation. All these articles are about the connection between Hegel and the African participation in History. In the letter that he has sent to the French journalist Jean Ristat, he gave a short and clear explanation of his points of view. As I already pointed it out, he is the first scholar to ask the question whether Hegel was inspired by the revolutionary events of Saint-Domingue or not. For him, the African Revolution in Saint-Domingue and the birth of Haiti as a State must be considered as the main historical source (not the only one) of the famous “figure of consciousness” called “dominion and servitude” but that is improperly called, “the master-slave dialectic”. Nevertheless, for him, The Phenomenology of Mind refers to the Revolution of 1789 and to the victorious slave uprising in Saint-Domingue only as “figures of consciousness”. It’s up to the reader to find out the times and the historical events behind these figures of consciousness. For this reason, he affirms that the figure called “dominion and servitude” had many sources (Old Testament, Hercules, Spartacus, etc.) but that the main source is the book of L’Abbé Raynal, Histoire philosophique des établissements européens dans les deux Indes, in which, Raynal and Diderot, for the first time, announce the future victory of a Black slave over his master in the Black world. According to many historians, Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Revolution in Saint-Domingue, has read the book.

According to Tavarès, Hegel read the book when he was in Berne. And by reading it, he became aware of the horrors of slavery. From then on, he became a violent opponent of slavery in the Caribbean. Because of that—and this is one of the points on which Susan Buck-Morss disagrees with him—Tavarès refuses to consider Hegel as a racist. He points out that Hegel had a long relationship with Abbé Grégoire friends’ circle. Moreover, he criticizes Buck-Morss for ignoring that particularly in The Philosophy of Mind, Hegel completely destroyed the racist and racialist arguments of his time, notably by criticizing and making a mock of Gall’s phrenology. According to Tavarès, Hegel is not the author of the texts that are attributed to him (Cf. in this report: “Hegel and Africa”). Hegel is considered as a racist because of texts that are apocryphal.”

Source: http://www.tanbou.com/2016/GlobalHistoryAndTheAfrican.htm#.Vrz2fgcE1e8.facebook

On the Importance of Intellectual Reparations

At the beginning of his short essay, Professor Décembre also wrote convincingly about Tavarès:
“Pierre Franklin Tavarès, a Cap-verdian born Hegelian scholar educated at the Sorbonne, is the one who started it all. He was the first to raise the question whether Hegel was inspired by events happening in Saint-Domingue at the end of the eighteen-century. He wrote a series of articles in the nineties in which he showed that Hegel was not unaffected by the issue of slavery that was very important at his time. He showed that Hegel criticized slavery in many texts even though the criticism is not obvious, due to many references made by Hegel to the ancients, notably Aristotle. Tavarès stated that Hegel read Diderot and Abbé Raynal’s History of the Indies in the center of which was the issue of slavery in the Caribbean. Therefore, for Tavarès, Hegel was aware of the problem and he was an abolitionist throughout his life.”

He also commented: “Susan Buck-Morss gave credit to Tavarès. Drawing on his conclusion, in her book called Hegel, Haiti and Universal History, she showed that the master and the slave that Hegel speaks of in the Phenomenology of Spirit are in fact “real slaves revolting against real masters” in a context that is the one of the Haitian Revolution of the end of the 18th century.”

Intellectual Reparation, which aims at acknowledging and recognizing the contributions of non-Western writers and those who have been placed in the margins of universal history and the human narrative, has always been an important concern for African, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Latino/a, and non-Western thinkers in the history of Western scholarship and history of intellectual exclusion in Western academia. Intellectual historian Peter K. J. Park has brilliantly argued for intellectual reparations in his groundbreaking study: Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780-1830 (SUNY Press, 2014). The content of the book is described in these words:

“In this provocative historiography, Peter K. J. Park provides a penetrating account of a crucial period in the development of philosophy as an academic discipline. During these decades, a number of European philosophers influenced by Immanuel Kant began to formulate the history of philosophy as a march of progress from the Greeks to Kant—a genealogy that supplanted existing accounts beginning in Egypt or Western Asia and at a time when European interest in Sanskrit and Persian literature was flourishing. Not without debate, these traditions were ultimately deemed outside the scope of philosophy and relegated to the study of religion. Park uncovers this debate and recounts the development of an exclusionary canon of philosophy in the decades of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. To what extent was this exclusion of Africa and Asia a result of the scientization of philosophy? To what extent was it a result of racism?
This book includes the most extensive description available anywhere of Joseph-Marie de Gérando’s Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie, Friedrich Schlegel’s lectures on the history of philosophy, Friedrich Ast’s and Thaddä Anselm Rixner’s systematic integration of Africa and Asia into the history of philosophy, and the controversy between G. W. F. Hegel and the theologian August Tholuck over “pantheism.”

I wholeheartedly applaud the board of CPA for recognizing the value and implications of this important study; Professor Peter’s book has won The Frantz Fanon Award for Outstanding Book in Caribbean Thought in 2016.

Aldon Morris, in his award-winning and stimulating book, The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology (University of California Press, 2015) — 2016 R.R. Hawkins Award, PROSE Award for Excellence—has also made the case for intellectual reparations in the example of the laudable contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois and his writings in the foundation of American sociology. As the blurb of the book reads:
“In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’s ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’s work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible. Morris uncovers the seminal theoretical work of Du Bois in developing a “scientific” sociology through a variety of methodologies and examines how the leading scholars of the day disparaged and ignored Du Bois’s work.”

Like Du Bois, the Haitian anthropologist and thinker Joseph Anténor Firmin—the first Black anthropologist—whose pioneering study, De l’égalité des races humaines : anthropologie positive (The Equality of Human Races/University of Illinois Press, 2002)) , which he published in 1885 at the emergence of anthropology as an academic discipline in the West, has been a victim of Western academic isolation. It was recently Firmin was recognized as a “pioneer of anthropology (for further detail, see Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban’s seminal article, “Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology” (American Anthropologist, Vol. 102, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 449-466); however, Firmin’s work is not widely known in the academia in the Anglophone world, and unfortunately, Joseph Anténor Firmin as a founding father of Western anthropology is not widely accepted, for example, by American Anthropological Association. In the academic practice  of intellectual exclusion and epistemic disobedience, The Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA), which was founded in 1970, has yet to officially recognize Firmin as a founding father of Black anthropology. Nonetheless, careful scholarship does reveal that the history of thought in Francophone Black Atlantic, Hispanophone Black Atlantic, or Anglophone Black Atlantic, etc. intersect, converge, and confluence. This observation, however, does not undermine the prominence of décalage, and intellectual conflicts and misapprehensions in the wider Black Atlantic and African Diasporic thought and culture.

To bring this short reflection to a close, allow me to take us back to the core of the issue: unfortunately, the board of the Caribbean Philosophical Association who decided on The Frantz Fanon Award in 2009 has also missed the mark. It is never too late (to practice) for intellectual reparations. Pierre Franklin Tavarès is still alive!!! An important scholarly and professional guild like CPA cannot practice what it is been fighting for since its foundation that is “Shifting the geography of reason.” To me, the motto of CPA calls for our continuous efforts and collaboration to interrogate the (exclusive and absolute) value of Western intellectual hegemony and the practice of academic isolation—as it pertains to the works and ideas of Non-Western thinkers.

Intellectual reparation is the right thing to do. Joseph Anténor Firmin once declared, “Il faut réparer au nom de la philosophie morale” (“We must repair in the name of moral philosophy.”) In the same line of thought like Firmin, Frantz Fanon, and Walter D. Mignolo, the Haitian scholar and sociologist Jean Eddy Saint Paul has exclaimed, “Il faut réparer au nom de la décolonialité, une manière de faire justice aux damnés de la terre. Il faut réparer au nom de la désobéissance épistémique conçue ici comme contre-poétique décoloniale” (“We must repair in the name of decoloniality, a manner of doing justice to the wretched of the earth. We must repair in the name of epistemic disobedience as conceived here as decolonial poetics.”) Intellectual reparation is morally, ethically, and academically justified.

*This essay is also available as a PDF document. Click on the link below to access it:

On Intellectual Reparations