Guest lecture by Prof. Nadève Ménard (École Normale Supérieure - Université d'État d'Haïti
About the lecture
Although foreign characters and settings have been present in Haitian literature since its beginnings, the experience of the American occupation of the country between 1915 and 1934 gave this presence added significance. The writers of this period used a variety of perspectives and narrative strategies to paint a picture of those who wanted to impose their will on the Haitian people. This presentation will focus on the portrayal of foreign characters in six Haitian novels published during this period that deal with the occupation.
The corpus of the conference: Les Simulacres by Fernand Hibbert (1923), Le Choc by Léon Laleau (1932), Le Nègre Masqué by Stéphen Alexis (1933), La Blanche Négresse by Cléante Desgraves-Valcin (1934), Le Joug by Annie Desroy (1934) and Viejo by Maurice Casséus (1935).
About the speaker
Nadève Ménard is a professor of literature at the École Normale Supérieure of the State University of Haiti. She is interested in the representation of the American occupation in Haitian literature as well as in political conflicts, the linguistic landscape of Haiti and the relationship between the sexes. Prof Ménard coordinated the volume Écrits d'Haïti: perspectives sur la littérature haïtienne contemporaine (1986-2006) (Karthala, 2011) and the special issue of the Journal of Haitian Studies on Michel-Rolph Trouillot (2013). She is the author of Lyonel Trouillot, Les Enfants des héros: étude critique(Champion, 2016) and co-editor of The Haiti Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke, 2020). She has also translated several texts, most recently Haïti aux Haïtiens by Louis Joseph Janvier (LUP, 2023). Nadève Ménard is currently working on a manuscript entitled Enduring Myths: Scholars and Stories about Haitian Literature, which is under contract with Liverpool University Press.
Guest lecture in French.
The event will take place via Zoom: https://urls.fr/hj4w7C
Contact: Marie Cravageot (cravageot@uni-wuppertal.de)
