About the presentation: In this presentation, I will examine the significance of Haiti as a key referent of WEB Du Bois’ epistemic perspective (theoretical, methodological, research agenda) as well as his politics of liberation. I will argue that Haiti serves as a barometer of Du Bois’ analytical and political postures, which indicate important theoretical and practical positions and changes he assumed in key world-historical moments, such as the 1915 U.S. invasion of Haiti where Du Bois still had a rather liberal analysis and politics, vis-a-vis the shift toward a more radical orientation that he assumed since the 1930s with his turn toward Marxist theory and panafrican radical politics. On that key, I will examine Du Bois’ writings and public interventions to defend Haiti as a fundamental source of Black identities, knowledge, and politics, and as a primary referent for panafricanism–conceived as a key historical formation for understanding modern/colonial history, theory, politics, and culture, and for promoting a global project of liberation based on the centrality of Black historical agency. I will focus on the significance of Haiti in what I call Du Bois’ Trans-American Pan-Africanism, to demonstrate how Amefrica (as called by Lelia Gonzalez) is not only an “imperial workshop” (Grandin) but above all a laboratory of liberation. Following Du Bois, I will analyze Haiti es a “maroon nation” from two angles: its exclusion from an “international community” dominated by White Empires and Capital, and as a space composed by subaltern sectors which remained resistant to Western rationalities of death and life.
About the presenter: Nave Visiting Scholar, Agustin Lao-Montes, a Puerto Rican born afrodescendent intellectual-activist, is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is one of the founding figures of the “decolonial turn”. He has published several books and articles on a variety of fields including: critical theory, decolonial critique, critical race theory, insersectional analysis, political theory, historical sociology, urban studies, cultural studies, africana studies, latin american-caribbean studies, and intercultural education. He is a member of the leadership of the Articulacion Regional Afrodescendiente en Amefica y el Caribe (ARAAC) and General Coordinator of Malunga: Network for Global Justice and against Antiblackness. His next book (co-authored with Juliana Goes and Jorge Daniel Vasquez) will be titled: “Du Bois on Latin America and the Caribbean: Trans-American Pan-Africanism and Global Sociology”.
Co-organized by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and LACIS with funding from the Anonymous Fund. Co-sponsored by the Puerto Rican Studies Hub.