The Haitian Revolution and Afromodernity: Political Speech, Euromodernity & Black Universalism
Abstract
The Haitian Revolution introduced a seismic shift in political constellations, leading to the constitution of the first free Black republic within the New World. Revolutionary Haiti com-municated the content of that freedom as it embarked along the path of revolutionary liberation. This article examines the nature of that communication by demonstrating how political speech is implicated at the formative levels of Black selfhood and statehood through the construction of a Black universalism, which disavows speechlessness and its sublimation as Black barbarism. Ultimately, the article contends a decisive shift transpires from Euromodernity to Afromodernity and with it, the (re)humanization of Blackness.
Publication Title
Theory and Event
Recommended Citation
Chevannes, D. (2023). The Haitian Revolution and Afromodernity: Political Speech, Euromodernity & Black Universalism. Theory and Event, 26 (2), 318-344. https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2023.0017
