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“I Wait for Me”: Visualizing the Absence of the Haitian Revolution in Cinematic Text by Jude Ulysse a Thesis Submitted in C

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“I Wait for Me”: Visualizing the Absence of the Haitian Revolution in Cinematic Text by Jude Ulysse a Thesis Submitted in C “I wait for me”: Visualizing the Absence of the Haitian Revolution in Cinematic Text By Jude Ulysse A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto 2017 ABSTRACT “I wait for me” Visualizing the Absence of the Haitian Revolution in Cinematic Text Doctor of Philosophy Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto 2017 In this thesis I explore the memory of the Haitian Revolution in film. I expose the colonialist traditions of selective memory, the ones that determine which histories deserve the attention of professional historians, philosophers, novelists, artists and filmmakers. In addition to their capacity to comfort and entertain, films also serve to inform, shape and influence public consciousness. Central to the thesis, therefore, is an analysis of contemporary filmic representations and denials of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution. I employ a research design that examines the relationship between depictions of Haiti and the country’s colonial experience, as well as the revolution that reshaped that experience. I address two main questions related to the revolution and its connection to the age of modernity. The first concerns an examination of how Haiti has contributed to the production of modernity while the second investigates what it means to remove Haiti from this production of modernity. I aim to unsettle the hegemonic understanding of modernity as the sole creation of the West. The thrust of my argument is that the Haitian Revolution created the space where a re-articulation of the human could be possible. I submit that the relegation of Haiti in the cinematic world should be seen as an active response by the apologists of European universalism to the ways in which the revolution undermined claims to Western superiority. Such relegation is a process through which modern Euro-American societies reproduce and sustain their own understanding of the human, an understanding that dates back to the colonial era. I argue, therefore, that the struggle for memory with respect to the Haitian Revolution requires an anticolonial conception of humanness that explicitly repudiates slavery and colonization. For the filmmaker, this entails a cinematic practice that challenges the forces of imperialism and its consequences for postcolonial subjects while providing a revised visual conception of what it means to be human. ii Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Rationale ..................................................................................................................... 1 Research Ethics ........................................................................................................... 6 CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................... 10 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY...................................................................................... 10 Deciphering the Coloniality of Memory and Representation ........................................... 10 Research Design........................................................................................................ 10 Representation and the Practice of Disavowal .......................................................... 31 CHAPTER TWO .............................................................................................................. 46 FROM COLONY TO EMANCIPATION ........................................................................ 46 Modernity .................................................................................................................. 46 The Pearl of the Antilles ........................................................................................... 48 Slavery, Capitalism and Modernity .......................................................................... 49 Slavery, Race and Capitalism ................................................................................... 53 Self/Other and Colonialism....................................................................................... 56 CHAPTER THREE .......................................................................................................... 65 THE REVOLUTION ........................................................................................................ 65 Religion, Spirituality and the Practice of Emancipation ............................................... 65 Basic Principles of Vodou ........................................................................................ 65 Violence and the Reclaiming of Humanity ............................................................... 73 Emancipation ............................................................................................................ 76 Toussaint Louverture .................................................................................................... 79 Toussaint Louverture and the Revolutionary Army ................................................. 81 Toussaint Louverture and his Shift of Allegiance .................................................... 83 The Constitution of 1801 .......................................................................................... 85 Napoleon Bonaparte and the Louverturian Constitution .......................................... 86 The Capture of Toussaint Louverture ....................................................................... 88 The Revolution and its Aftermath................................................................................. 91 Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Haitian Independence ................................................. 91 The Proclamation of Haiti ......................................................................................... 93 Impact of the Haitian Revolution .............................................................................. 94 iii Saint-Domingue Refugees in New Orleans .............................................................. 96 Haiti and its State of Dependency ............................................................................. 97 Remembering the Haitian Revolution: The Revolution and Modern Literature ........ 101 Fiction and Revolution ............................................................................................ 103 Bug-Jargal ............................................................................................................... 104 CHAPTER FOUR ........................................................................................................... 109 HAITI AND THE CINEMA .......................................................................................... 109 Print and Literary Origin of Cinematic Sensationalism .......................................... 110 Race, Space and the Cartography of Necromancy .................................................. 118 Race, religion and modernity .................................................................................. 125 Henry Christophe: A Degenerate Revolutionary .................................................... 138 The Presence of Slavery.......................................................................................... 146 The Sound of Freedom............................................................................................ 151 The Color of Revolution: “The Patriot” and “A Tale of Two Cities” ........................ 159 The Patriot ............................................................................................................... 160 A Tale of Two Cities............................................................................................... 164 Memory, Symbolisms and National Consciousness ................................................... 167 The Last Supper .......................................................................................................... 169 A Spectre of Hope: Burn! and Toussaint Louverture ................................................. 183 Mission civilisatrice ................................................................................................ 186 Reporting Colonial Violence in Neocolonial Contexts .......................................... 193 CHAPTER FIVE ............................................................................................................ 199 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 199 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 206 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to a team of individuals whose support, guidance and mentorship made this project possible. I am particularly grateful to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Kari Dheli, for her conceptual insight and theoretical direction. Her knowledge of cultural studies contributed additionally to the achievement of this project. Dr. Dehli answered my questions, pointed me to pertinent sources and carefully
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