Haiti: Past, Present, and Futures

Catalog description

How can historical knowledge and methods be applied towards social innovation to problem-solve pressing economic, political, social, and environmental issues? This course investigates this question by analyzing the history, present, and futures of Haiti. While every nation has a creation story, few are as unique and particular as Haiti, the only country established through slaves revolting and wresting their freedom. The course will explore key moments in Haiti's complex and dynamic history, from the culmination of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 to the present day. The long aftermath of indemnity and debt, invasion and occupation by other nations, political instability, and its current status as a failed state present Haiti as an important site for analyzing the meanings of nation, peoplehood, and sovereignty in the modern world. This course analyzes the experiences and ideas of Haitians in shaping governance, the economy and labor, education, family life and gender roles, the law, religion, culture and the arts, the environment, geopolitics, and the very question of how Haitian history is researched, remembered, and narrated. Course content will include documentary films, political texts, novels, legislation, essays, economic data, art, and scholarly research. In analyzing these sources and engaging with heads of NGO's, writers, and academic researchers students will explore how academic research can impact policy and social entrepreneurship.