My Books by Philip Kaisary
From Havana to Hollywood examines the presence or absence of Black resistance to slavery in featu... more From Havana to Hollywood examines the presence or absence of Black resistance to slavery in feature films produced in either Havana or Hollywood—including Gillo Pontecorvo's Burn!, neglected masterpieces by Cuban auteurs Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Sergio Giral, and Steve McQueen's Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave. Philip Kaisary argues that, with rare exceptions, the representation of Black agency in Hollywood has always been, and remains, taboo. Contrastingly, Cuban cinema foregrounds Black agency, challenging the ways in which slavery has been misremembered and misunderstood in North America and Europe. With powerful, richly theorized readings, the book shows how Cuban cinema especially recreates the past to fuel visions of liberation and asks how the medium of film might contribute to a renewal of emancipatory politics today.
From the book jacket:
"The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the debates about slavery an... more From the book jacket:
"The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom throughout the Atlantic world, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighboring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. The story of the birth of the world’s first independent black republic has since held an iconic fascination for a diverse array of writers, artists, and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic diaspora. Examining twentieth-century responses to the Haitian Revolution, Philip Kaisary offers a profound new reading of the representation of the Revolution by radicals and conservatives alike in primary texts that span English, French, and Spanish languages and that include poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera.
In a complementary focus on canonical works by Aimé Césaire, C. L. R. James, Edouard Glissant, and Alejo Carpentier in addition to the work of René Depestre, Langston Hughes, and Madison Smartt Bell, Kaisary argues that the Haitian Revolution generated an enduring cultural and ideological inheritance. He addresses critical understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution and thinks through how, and to what effect, authors of major diasporic texts have metamorphosed and appropriated this spectacular corner of black revolutionary history."
Reviews by Philip Kaisary
Articles by Philip Kaisary
Atlantic Studies, 2020
This article focuses on the interactions, connections and parallels
in literary texts addressing ... more This article focuses on the interactions, connections and parallels
in literary texts addressing Haiti by Anglophone Caribbean
writers C.L.R. James and Derek Walcott, and Francophone writers
Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant. Primary materials considered
include: C.L.R. James’ 1934 playscript, Toussaint Louverture, which
had been lost for many years until recently; two plays by Derek
Walcott, Henri Christophe and Drums and Colours; Aimé Césaire’s
book-length poem, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land and
his theatrical work, The Tragedy of King Christophe; and Édouard
Glissant’s single published play, Monsieur Toussaint. Collectively,
this corpus of primary materials demonstrates parallels and
connections within literary efforts at decolonization across the
Caribbean and reveals Haiti as a principle of coherence, and of
hope.
PALARA, 2019
In 2013, Henry Louis Gates lamented the tradition of whitewashing and the passing over of slave s... more In 2013, Henry Louis Gates lamented the tradition of whitewashing and the passing over of slave stories which has become commonplace throughout cinematic history: "there have been all too few films that have captured, or even attempted to convey, the truth of the experience of slavery, from the slave's point of view" and even fewer "worthy of recognition." While it is true that there have been some high-profile films produced in the last decade-12 Years a Slave, Django Unchained, and Birth of a Nation, among others-that have endeavored to represent slavery from the "slave's point of view," Gates' assessment remains largely apposite within the contexts of Hollywood and English-language productions. However, Afro-Latinx cinema and the history of post-revolutionary Cuban cinema in particular tells a very different story. To evidence this difference, this article will explore El otro Francisco, which was originally released in 1975, and is the first in a searing trilogy of films focused on slavery in Cuba in which perspectives of the enslaved are fo-regrounded and the traditional representation of slavery-which has to a great extent elided the rich history of slave resistance-is rigorously undermined.
Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian Revolution’s two most important lea... more Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian Revolution’s two most important leaders, have long been considered each others’ foils. Whereas Dessalines has been subjected to vicious, racist caricature, Toussaint has tended to elicit more sympathetic portrayals. This paper examines a rare, recently rediscovered exception to this dichotomy. Stephen Farley and Avery Williams, two Dartmouth College seniors, co-wrote and performed a short play in August 1804 that offers a nuanced understanding of Dessalines. Farley and Williams’s play-script thus affords insight into the impact of Haitian independence on representational forms in the United States in the early nineteenth century.
Atlantic Studies (Vol 12, No 4, Winter 2015)
This article considers the 1801 Constitution of Saint-Domingue, which was promulgated by Toussain... more This article considers the 1801 Constitution of Saint-Domingue, which was promulgated by Toussaint Louverture. It argues that this complex and contradictory constitution can be productively considered in the light of Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s canonical work of Atlantic history, The Many-Headed Hydra. By this method the presence of both radical emancipatory and antidemocratic currents within the Haitian
Revolution are revealed. While the 1801 Constitution bears the influence of the ‘proletarian hydra’ – its unequivocal abolition of slavery codified in law the revolutionary masses’ key demand – it also bears the interests of colonial Atlantic World capital.
Finally, it is argued that the 1801 Constitution casts light on two profoundly different conceptions of freedom: a conservative conception emerging from ‘practical politics,’
and the other, a more radical vision borne of the highly contingent experience of the African slave trade and the plantation system in the Americas.
Law and Humanities (Vol 6, No 2, Winter 2012)
The article examines the way in which Aimé Césaire's book-length poem, Cahier d'un retour au pays... more The article examines the way in which Aimé Césaire's book-length poem, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (?Notebook of a Return to My Native Land), the founding text of the négritude movement, and C.L.R. James's The Black Jacobins recuperate the Haitian Revolution, and in particular the character of Toussaint Louverture, in order to interrogate the absence of the consideration of the Haitian Revolution in human rights discourse and historiography. Particular attention is paid to the way in which Césaire and James use the Haitian Revolution to foreground black agency and a discourse of universalism in their representations. For Césaire, Toussaint and the Haitian Revolution signified blackness as a sign of the colonised condition and its overcoming - Haiti was where “négritude stood up for the first time“. For James, Toussaint and the Haitian Revolution provide an example where assumptions of black passivity and powerlessness were rejected.
Book Chapters by Philip Kaisary
Racialized Visions: Haiti and the Hispanic Caribbean, edited by Vanessa K. Valdés, (Albany: SUNY University Press, 2020):, 2020
Interviews by Philip Kaisary
Special Issues by Philip Kaisary
Talks by Philip Kaisary
This paper considers the 1801 Constitution of Saint-Domingue, which was promulgated by Toussaint ... more This paper considers the 1801 Constitution of Saint-Domingue, which was promulgated by Toussaint Louverture. It argues that this complex and contradictory constitution can be productively considered in the light of Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s canonical work of Atlantic history, "The Many-Headed Hydra". By this method the presence of both radical emancipatory and antidemocratic currents within the Haitian Revolution are revealed. While the 1801 Constitution bears the influence of the ‘proletarian hydra’ – its unequivocal abolition of slavery codified in law the revolutionary masses’ key demand – it also bears the interests of colonial Atlantic World capital. Finally, it is argued that the 1801 Constitution casts light on two profoundly different conceptions of freedom: a conservative conception emerging from ‘practical politics,’ and the other, a more radical vision borne of the highly contingent experience of the African slave trade and the plantation system in the Americas.
Philip Kaisary is Assistant Professor of Law at Warwick University. His interdisciplinary researc... more Philip Kaisary is Assistant Professor of Law at Warwick University. His interdisciplinary research interests focus on slavery and Atlantic history and law in contexts of 'disaster'. Prof Kaisary will be discussing his new book on the literary legacies of the Haitian Revolution (University of Virginia Press, February 2014), which examines the representation of Revolution in twentieth-century texts by radicals and conservatives alike. His study encompasses works in English, French, and Spanish languages, including poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera.
Conference Presentations by Philip Kaisary
*CFP* American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) 2020 Seminar Proposal, 2020
This seminar aims to contribute to the ongoing work of re-energizing critical theory as a sociall... more This seminar aims to contribute to the ongoing work of re-energizing critical theory as a socially transformative project by revisiting Adorno and Horkheimer's foundational Dialectic of Enlightenment (first published in 1947 in German as Dialektik der Aufklärung; English translation first published in 1972). We seek papers that place a special emphasis on the legacies of Dialectic of Enlightenment in light of environmental catastrophe and climate breakdown, critical theory's engagements with political ecology, and attempts to revise and reconfigure the received histories of capital and modernity. Papers might engage with this broad theme through readings of a variety of texts and media, including (but not limited to) literary, cultural, and theoretical materials. Interdisciplinary submissions are especially welcome, as well as those grounded in a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds (including the humanistic social sciences). After a period of relative neglect, the Frankfurt School is once again on the front burner of theoretical attention. While the context of resurgent global neo-fascisms-from Washington D.C. to Brasília, to London, Moscow, New Delhi, and beyond-offers one sobering and compelling reason to revisit the legacy of Adorno and his associates at the Institute for Social Research, the field of Frankfurt School and (in particular) Adorno studies has itself shifted in response to other pressures. Some of these have been disciplinary: consider, for example, postcolonial critiques of a Eurocentric conception of modernity and Marxist-feminist reconstructions of Enlightenment history. Other pressures have been more general and include, inter alia, the encroachment of technology into all areas of public and private life, the continuing automation of work, and the rise of AI. A relatively under-attended aspect of Frankfurt School critique, however, has been its understanding of the role of (non-human) nature in capitalist modernity. Many of the current debates around the Anthropocene/Capitalocene would benefit from greater engagement with this strand of Dialectic of Enlightenment's argument; conversely, the ecological crisis today throws aspects of Dialectic of Enlightenment-what it includes and what it overlooks-into sharper relief. From the standpoint of our current historical moment, twenty years into the new millennium, the capacity of narratives predicated on liberal democratic ideology to communicate a hopeful message of progress has been revealed as wholly insufficient; within this context, drawing on the resources provided by the Frankfurt School and its varied interlocutors, the seminar aims to theorize and to critically appraise alternative modes of being in the world. Please submit paper proposals to: [email protected] and [email protected] by September 23. For more information on the conference please visit: https://www.acla.org/annual-meeting
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My Books by Philip Kaisary
"The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom throughout the Atlantic world, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighboring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. The story of the birth of the world’s first independent black republic has since held an iconic fascination for a diverse array of writers, artists, and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic diaspora. Examining twentieth-century responses to the Haitian Revolution, Philip Kaisary offers a profound new reading of the representation of the Revolution by radicals and conservatives alike in primary texts that span English, French, and Spanish languages and that include poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera.
In a complementary focus on canonical works by Aimé Césaire, C. L. R. James, Edouard Glissant, and Alejo Carpentier in addition to the work of René Depestre, Langston Hughes, and Madison Smartt Bell, Kaisary argues that the Haitian Revolution generated an enduring cultural and ideological inheritance. He addresses critical understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution and thinks through how, and to what effect, authors of major diasporic texts have metamorphosed and appropriated this spectacular corner of black revolutionary history."
Reviews by Philip Kaisary
Articles by Philip Kaisary
in literary texts addressing Haiti by Anglophone Caribbean
writers C.L.R. James and Derek Walcott, and Francophone writers
Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant. Primary materials considered
include: C.L.R. James’ 1934 playscript, Toussaint Louverture, which
had been lost for many years until recently; two plays by Derek
Walcott, Henri Christophe and Drums and Colours; Aimé Césaire’s
book-length poem, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land and
his theatrical work, The Tragedy of King Christophe; and Édouard
Glissant’s single published play, Monsieur Toussaint. Collectively,
this corpus of primary materials demonstrates parallels and
connections within literary efforts at decolonization across the
Caribbean and reveals Haiti as a principle of coherence, and of
hope.
Revolution are revealed. While the 1801 Constitution bears the influence of the ‘proletarian hydra’ – its unequivocal abolition of slavery codified in law the revolutionary masses’ key demand – it also bears the interests of colonial Atlantic World capital.
Finally, it is argued that the 1801 Constitution casts light on two profoundly different conceptions of freedom: a conservative conception emerging from ‘practical politics,’
and the other, a more radical vision borne of the highly contingent experience of the African slave trade and the plantation system in the Americas.
Book Chapters by Philip Kaisary
Interviews by Philip Kaisary
Special Issues by Philip Kaisary
Talks by Philip Kaisary
Conference Presentations by Philip Kaisary
"The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom throughout the Atlantic world, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighboring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. The story of the birth of the world’s first independent black republic has since held an iconic fascination for a diverse array of writers, artists, and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic diaspora. Examining twentieth-century responses to the Haitian Revolution, Philip Kaisary offers a profound new reading of the representation of the Revolution by radicals and conservatives alike in primary texts that span English, French, and Spanish languages and that include poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera.
In a complementary focus on canonical works by Aimé Césaire, C. L. R. James, Edouard Glissant, and Alejo Carpentier in addition to the work of René Depestre, Langston Hughes, and Madison Smartt Bell, Kaisary argues that the Haitian Revolution generated an enduring cultural and ideological inheritance. He addresses critical understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution and thinks through how, and to what effect, authors of major diasporic texts have metamorphosed and appropriated this spectacular corner of black revolutionary history."
in literary texts addressing Haiti by Anglophone Caribbean
writers C.L.R. James and Derek Walcott, and Francophone writers
Aimé Césaire and Édouard Glissant. Primary materials considered
include: C.L.R. James’ 1934 playscript, Toussaint Louverture, which
had been lost for many years until recently; two plays by Derek
Walcott, Henri Christophe and Drums and Colours; Aimé Césaire’s
book-length poem, Notebook of a Return to My Native Land and
his theatrical work, The Tragedy of King Christophe; and Édouard
Glissant’s single published play, Monsieur Toussaint. Collectively,
this corpus of primary materials demonstrates parallels and
connections within literary efforts at decolonization across the
Caribbean and reveals Haiti as a principle of coherence, and of
hope.
Revolution are revealed. While the 1801 Constitution bears the influence of the ‘proletarian hydra’ – its unequivocal abolition of slavery codified in law the revolutionary masses’ key demand – it also bears the interests of colonial Atlantic World capital.
Finally, it is argued that the 1801 Constitution casts light on two profoundly different conceptions of freedom: a conservative conception emerging from ‘practical politics,’
and the other, a more radical vision borne of the highly contingent experience of the African slave trade and the plantation system in the Americas.