Haby Ka is completing her PhD in French at Stanford University, where her research explores representations of freedom and subjectivity in the francophone postcolonial context. Her presentation offers a critical contextualization and analysis of Aimé Césaire's Toussaint Louverture: La revolution française et le problème colonial (1960). It situates the work within Césaire's broader intellectual project and highlights Haiti's unique role in shaping his conception of Négritude. The discussion will also examine how Césaire's reliance on colonial racial hierarchies shapes his historical narrative and, at times, obscures the role of class. The aim is to show that Césaire's work remains a significant intervention that challenges Eurocentric historiography and reclaims Haiti's place in universal history.

This event is sponsored by the Stanford Humanities Center's Slavery and Freedom Research Workshop.