The Black Jacobins Revisited: Rewriting History Conference
27–28 October 2013 International Slavery Museum and Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool
Just a reminder that the deadline for registration is by end of the day Sunday 1 September 2013. To register, please click on this link: blackjacobins@brownpapertickets.com
They are getting quite full, but there are still a few places remaining.
The Black Jacobins Revisited: Rewriting History Conference
27–28 October 2013 International Slavery Museum and Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool

Conference Programme
Sunday 27 October, International Slavery Museum, Liverpool
9.30–11.00 Plenary Session One
Robert A. Hill (UCLA and C.L.R. James’s Literary Executor), Truth, the Whole Truth, and Revolution-making in The Black Jacobins
Bill Schwarz (QMUL), Primitive Emancipation
11–11.15        Coffee break
11.15–12.45 Panel Sessions One
1        James’s Haitian revolution plays
Christian Høgsbjerg (Leeds Met), ‘The Artist Must Elect to Fight for Freedom’: Paul Robeson and the Haitian Revolution
Rachel Douglas (University of Glasgow), Making Drama of the Haitian Revolution From Below: C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins (1967) Play
Raj Chetty (University of Washington, Seattle), Can a Mulatta be a Black Jacobin?: James, Feminism, and the Place of Collaboration
2       James Rewriting Marx
Raphael Hoermann, (Giessen University), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Toussaint Louverture? C.L.R. James’s Poetics of Anti-Colonial Revolution in The Black Jacobins and Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire
Joanna Tegnerowicz (University of Wroclow), ‘And now tell us that we are not worthy of freedom …’: Revolutionaries, Race and ‘Civilization’
12.45–1.30 Lunch
1.30–3.00 Panel Sessions Two
1       Francophone Caribbean Perspectives on James
Fabienne Viala (University of Warwick) Sabotage, commemoration and performance: The Black Jacobins and Maryse Condé’s An Tan Revolysion
Kelly Brignac (Vanderbildt) ‘His Most Paternal Chest’: Bourbon Royalism and the Death of Paternalism in Nineteenth-Century Martinique
Daniel Nethery (University of Sydney) The Black Jacobins, Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon
2       The Black Jacobins and Pan-Africanism
Sharon Elizabeth Burke (European University Institute, Florence) ‘Reading The Black Jacobins as Pan-African’: C.L.R. James and the Greater Diasporic Historical Consciousness
Peter Fraser (Institute of Commonwealth Studies), Generalising the Message of The Black Jacobins: The History of Negro Revolt
Nigel Carter (London Met), Educate-Co-operate-Emancipate: C.L.R. James’s  A History of Pan-African Revolt
3.00–3.15 Coffee
3.15–4.45 Panel Session Three
Haitian Connections
Raphael Dalleo (Florida Atlantic University) ‘The independence so hardly won has been maintained’: C.L.R. James and the U.S. Occupation of Haiti
Rafael Gómez (SUNY), In-between the Saints and the Spirits?: Toussaint L’Ouverture’s curious relationship with Voodoo reexamined
4.45–5.30 Plenary Session 2
Rawle Gibbons (University of the West Indies, Director of three Caribbean Productions of The Black Jacobins Play), Dechoukaj!: The Black Jacobins and Liberating Caribbean Theatre
Yvonne Brewster (Director of London Production of The Black Jacobins Play; Founder of Talawa Theatre Company), From Page to Stage
6–7.30  Buffet/wine Reception, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool
7.30 Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History. A Reading of Extracts
First performance since 1936 of precursor to C.L.R. James’s classic history of the Haitian revolution The Black Jacobins, which started life as a play with Paul Robeson in the lead
Monday 28 October, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool
9.00–10.30 Panel Session Four
Contesting History
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall (California State University, San Marcos), Beyond The Black Jacobins: Recent Historiography on the Haitian Revolution
Courtney Gildersleeve (University of Minnesota), Facing a Revolutionary: Toussaint Louverture in Bordeaux and Historical Reckoning
David Featherstone (University of Glasgow), The Black Jacobins, Contested Universalities and Insurgent Geographies of Connection
10.30–10.45 Coffee Break
10.45–12.15 Plenary Session Three
Nick Nesbitt (Princeton), Paradoxes of Production: Labour, Revolution, and Universality in The Black Jacobins
Matthew J. Smith (University of the West Indies), ‘The Spirit of the Thing’: The Black Jacobins and  Caribbean Discourse on Haiti
12.15–1.00 Lunch Break and Class Wargames  with Fabian Tompsett (London Psychogeographical Association and Author), Richard Barbrook (University of Westminster), Stefan Lutschinger (Middlesex and State University of Saint Petersburg), Battle of Bedourete: Table-top Simulation of The Black Jacobins
1.00–2.30 Panel Session Five
Leaders and Masses in The Black Jacobins
Joseph J. García (University of New Mexico), The Windward Passage to Charismatic Revolutionary Leadership
Scott Henkel (Binghamton), ‘There are 2,000 Leaders’: C. L. R. James from Slave Revolt to Direct Democracy
Patrick Sylvain (Brown University), Architects of Coup D’état: Bitter Rivalry Among Early Haitian Revolutionary Generals
2.30–4.00       Panel Session Six
Performing Revolution
Jeremy M. Glick (Hunter College), C.L.R. James looks at St John the Baptist Preaching: Bodily Compression and Oceanic Logic of Un-gendering in Robeson, Rilke, Rodin
Jerome Teelucksingh (University of the West Indies), Rise of the Black Jacobins: Impact of the Haitian Revolution
4.00–6.00 Plenary Session Four
Selma James (activist and writer), Black Jacobins: History as a Political Weapon
Frank Rosengarten (CUNY), The Interplay between Literature and History in C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins
Selwyn Cudjoe (Wellesley), C. L. R. James and his Intellectual Background (Trinidad & Tobago)
Organised with generous support from: the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the International Slavery Museum, the Bluecoat, Society for the Study of French History, Society for French Studies, the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France, University of Glasgow, University of Liverpool, the Royal Historical Society, and the Alliance Française de Glasgow.
Conference organisers:
Dr Rachel Douglas, University of Glasgow (Rachel.Douglas@glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Rachel.Douglas@glasgow.ac.uk>) and Dr Kate Hodgson, University of Liverpool (K.Hodgson@liverpool.ac.uk<mailto:K.Hodgson@liverpool.ac.uk>)