Cécile Accilien: France, the U.S. and Haiti: Beyond the Single Narrative of the First Black Republic
Cécile Accilien: France, the U.S. and Haiti: Beyond the Single Narrative of the First Black Republic
The 2021 William Falls Memorial Lecture features Cécile Accilien, professor and chair in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. She will discuss "France, the U.S. and Haiti: Beyond the Single Narrative of the First Black Republic." Questions examined during this lecture include:
- What are some of the ways in which the U.S. continuously destabilize Haitian democracy through neo-liberalism?
- What is the complexity and the danger of "aid"?
- How and why did the U.S. support France by not accepting Haiti's independence for over 50 years.
About the Speaker
Cécile Accilien is professor and chair in the Interdisciplinary Studies Department at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. Her area of studies are Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures and Film & Media Studies and her primary research areas are Caribbean Popular Cultures, Film and Media Studies and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies. She is the author of Rethinking Marriage in Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures (Lexington Books, 2008). She has also co-edited and contributed to two collections of essays, Revolutionary Freedoms: A History of Survival, Strength and Imagination in Haiti (Caribbean Studies Press, 2006) and Just Below South: Intercultural Performance in the Caribbean and the U.S. South (University of Virginia Press, 2007); she co-wrote with Jowel Laguerre English-Haitian Creole Phrasebook (McGraw Hill, 2010) and Francophone Cultures Through Film with Nabil Boudraa (Focus Publishing, 2013). She has published articles in the Journal of Haitian Studies, Women, Gender and Families of Color, Revue française, Southern Quarterly and Diaspora in Caribbean Art. She recently co-edited volume Teaching Haiti: Creating New Narratives ( University Press of Florida, 2021) and is working on a monograph temporarily titled Haitian Hollywood: Representing Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora in Popular Cinema (under contract with SUNY Press). In 2019, she became the chair of the Editorial Board of the journal Women, Gender and Families of Color. She is also on the advisory board of the Haitian Studies Association.