While Haiti’s complex and “cursed” past was often used by journalists to explain its recent and tragic upheaval, these historical retellings frequently did more to malign and undermine the promising cultural and political forces the country was founded on than to illuminate them. How might historians and other academics responsibly and effectively contribute to a global public discourse?

Join Laurent Dubois (History, Duke University), the author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History and Greg Grandin (History, NYU), the author of, among many other prize-winning books, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism for a discussion with Gary Wilder(Anthropology, The Graduate Center, CUNY) about the challenges of writing critical histories of nations and empires in the current political climate.

This event is free and open to the public. The Committee on Globalization and Social Change and the Center for Humanities are co-sponsoring this event, which is connected to “Caribbean Epistemologies” and “Law, Justice and Global Political Futures.” For further information on these and other Seminars in the Humanities, seehttp://centerforthehumanities.org/seminars.