'The Haitian turn': Haiti, the Black Atlantic, and black transnational consciousness

This dissertation examines the role of the Haitian Revolution and Haiti's national history in the construction of Black Internationalism and Black Atlantic intellectual culture in the first half of the twentieth century. Toward this goal, I bring in conversation the coeval movements of the Harlem Renaissance, Haitian Indigenism, and the Negritude Movement by analyzing literary parallelisms, shared ideologies, and confluences between them. By way of rereading these three literary and sociocultural movements in light of the Haitian Revolution, this project then addresses such questions as: In what ways specifically did the Haitian Revolution and Haiti's national history shape and reshape discourses on history, citizenship, freedom, cultural identity, and religion in the twentieth century as articulated by key writers and intellectuals of the three movements? In other words, what was Haiti's distinctive role in the formation of a black intellectual tradition? This dissertation is an attempt to provide an answer to these critical issues. The dissertation argues for the centrality of Haiti in the genesis of Black internationalism.;It also contends that revolutionary Haiti played a major place in Black Atlantic thought and culture in the time covered. This project suggests viewing the dynamics between the Harlem Renaissance, Haitian Indigenism, and Negrtude and key writers and intellectuals in terms of interpenetration, interindepedence, and mutual reciprocity and collaboration.