“Writing as Conviction and for Human Flourishing”

2018

Year 2018 was probably my most productive year as a writer. I coedited one major book on Jean Price-Mars for Lexington Books, published five major peer-reviewed articles on history, literature, theology, ethics, and anthropology, and wrote three opinion pieces for The Haitian Times. In addition, I wrote about some two dozen blog posts on my personal webpage (drcelucienjoseph.com)

2019

In the beginning of the new year 2019, I published a major article on James H. Cone, another one on Cone is currently under review, submitted the final manuscript to Routledge for my coedited book on Edwidge Danticat, wrote two draft articles on the religious sensibility of Toussaint Louverture and on the impact of Christianity and Christian ideas on the major actors of the Haitian Revolution, and Paul Camy Mocombe and I are currently editing a new book on Joseph Antenor Firmin; we’re almost finished providing feedback to our contributors for their first draft. I recently signed a book contract with the University Press Of Mississippi for a major book on Haitian intellectual history.

***I believe the Lord God has blessed me abundantly as a writer. He has given me a passion to write and for research. I always have something to write about. Writing is a vocation, and I take it seriously. For me, writing simply means justice activism, and as a dynamic vehicle, I use the technology of writing to foster a better understanding of the human condition and how human knowledge is constructed and circulated, improve human interplays and relationships, and to challenge the unjust social order and oppressive systems–hopefully, my little effort as a writer will lead to the transformation of culture and society through convictional ideas and beliefs. I also interpret my writing as a way to contribute to an equitable society and human flourishing. Writing is connected intimately to my existential reality and my self-assertion and self-expression in being-in-the world. In other words, writing is pivotal in my quest for identity and it is critical for me to sustain it through this constant recognition and affirmation of the self. The art of writing help to establish my identity and humanity as an Imago Dei and my ground in this broken and changing world.

Therefore, my writing is a sacred responsibility, and as we say in Christian jargon, writing is my ministry that contributes hopefully to the advancement of the kingdom of God in the world.