Digital Projects

DECOLONIZE THAT! A WEBCAST

Co-host with Bhakti Shringarpure (University of Connecticut) of the webcast Decolonize That!, a series of 5 discussions about decolonial engagement and strategies in different sites of struggle, livestreamed throughout October 2020 and October 2021.

Decolonize That! #1: In the Beginning, there was Black Feminism. With guests Fania Noël and Yolande Bouka.

Decolonize That! #2: A/Symptomatic: Queer/Trans Pademic Worldmaking. With guests Godfried Asante and Debanuj Dasgupta.

Decolonize That! #3: Fear, Fakery and Loathing in Journalism Today. With guests Suchitra Vijayan and Parvaiz Bukhari.

Decolonize That! #4: No, it’s NOT on the Syllabus. With guests Sophia Azeb and Anthony C. Alessandrini.

Decolonize That! #5: If It Ain’t Broke, Dismantle It. With guests, MTL Collective.

Decolonize That! #6: New Horizons of Indigenous Representations. With guests Sandy Grande and Ernest Whiteman III.

Decolonize That! #7: Who’s Afraid of Humanitarian Aid? With guests Jehan Bseiso and Monique Kwachou.

Decolonize That! #8: Disrupting the Caribbean. With guests Marlene L. Daut and Zaka Toto.

Decolonize That! #9: War Minus the Shootouts. With guests Shireen Ahmed and Sean L. Jacobs.

Néhri, Chef des Haytiens

I am co-curator (with Tabitha McIntosh, Birkbeck, University of London) of the Digital Humanities project The Kingdom of Objects.

In its initial version, the website is dedicated to Néhri, Chef des Haytiens (1819), a play by Juste Chanlatte, Comte des Rosiers. Long thought lost, it was located in European archives by Tabitha McIntosh. I have written a biography of Chanlatte providing new information on his fairly obscure path and translated the play into English–with McIntosh’s inestimable help in drafting heroic couplets.

The kingdom’s literature was an essential element of its diplomacy–as were music, painting, architecture, manufacture, pageantry. When the kingdom collapsed, much of the material evidence of its rich cultural life disappeared–looted, resold, scattered throughout the Atlantic world. The broader, more ambitious version of the site will study the broader cultural production of the kingdom.