The twentieth century saw a wide range of struggles for women’s empowerment and equality in Haiti. In this excerpt, Carolle Charles focuses on the politicization and the consequent victimization of Haitian women under Duvalier. Exploring the phenomena of indiscriminate violence and repression as generative of political being, Charles unpacks the means by which the Duvalierist state ironically transformed women into more politicized, albeit more vulnerable, citizens.

This essay reflects on Haitian radicalism by looking at the life and the works of novelist Marie Vieux Chauvet (1916–73). Though increasingly a subject of interest for scholars of Haitian women's literature and of Haitian feminism, Chauvet's work is only rarely considered alongside that of more politically visible figures such as Jacques Roumain, Jacques-Stephen Alexis, and René Depestre. Chauvet's exceptionalized status has much to do with her nonparticipation in the gender-bound political culture of her time.

This chapter discusses the complex anthropology and history of Haiti and how its inter-connectedness to the rest of the world factors into its unique past and present. Inspired by and in dialogue with Benjamin and Marx, it questions and rethinks the categories of analysis that have defined much of anthropological and historical theory over the past two centuries. Dubois reflects on the problem of understanding Haiti through anthrohistory by returning to a series of early, and often overlooked, works on Haiti by the anthropologist Sidney Mintz.

Barnard alumna Edwidge Danticat and novelist Victoria Brown come together in the second event in the series, Caribbean Feminisms on the Page. This series places distinguished writers in conversation with emerging authors to discuss issues including feminism, diaspora, and method.