Haitian Modernity and Liberative Interruptions investigates the intersections of history, literature, race, religion, decolonization, and freedom that led to the founding of the postcolonial state of Haiti in 1804. Particular attention is given to the place of religion in the Haitian Revolution, as well as to the interpretation and representation of this singular event in the work of Frederick Douglass and Langston Hughes. This book not only examines the multiple legacies and the problems of Enlightenment modernity, imperial colonialism, Western racism, and hegemony, but also studies their complex relationships with the institutions of slavery, religion, and Black freedom. Topics range from Makandal's postcolonial religious imagination to Boukman's liberation theology to Langston Hughes' discussion of the role of prophetic religion in the Haitian Revolution. Haitian Modernity and Liberative Interruptions also compares Du Bois's theory of double consciousness with Fanon's theory of decolonization and revolutionary humanism.

PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroduction: Interpreting and Engaging the Haitian Revolution1 An Appraisal of Recent Scholarship on the Haitian Revolution2 The Rhetoric of Prayer: Dutty Boukman, the Discourse of ¿Freedom from Below,¿ and the Politics of God3 Prophetic Religion, Violence, and Black Freedom: Reading Makandal¿s Project of Black Liberation through A Fanonian Postcolonial Lens of Decolonization and Theory of Revolutionary Humanism4 ¿A City Upon a Hill¿: Haiti, Religion, and Race: Frederick Douglass¿ Freedom Discourse and the Significance of the Haitian Revolution as a Freedom Event in Modernity5 The Spirit of Revolution, the Spirit of Black Freedom: The Representation of the Haitian Revolution and the Function of Black Religion in Langston Hughes¿ Emperor of HaitiBibliographyIndexAbout the Author