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Unlike German Idealism whose intellectual development from Kant to Schopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, Husserl, Heidegger, and the Frankfurt school produced the dialectic, phenomenology, and deontological ethics, Haitian Idealism produces phenomenology and an antidialectic process to history enframed by a reciprocal justice as its normative ethics, which is constantly being invoked by individual social actors to reconcile the noumenal (sacred--ideational) and phenomenal (profane--material) subjective world in order to maintain balance and harmony between the two so that the human actor can live freely and happy. In this work I argue that the originating moments of the Haitian Revolution and its call for total freedom and equality demonstrates the antidialectical and normative processes of Haitian idealism, while the creation of the phenomenal world of subjective experiences according to ones capacity, modality, developmental stage (both spiritual, physical, and mental), and spiritual court is symptomatic of the phenomenological development in Haitian Idealism and its afeminist epistemology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Haitian Revolution is not only one of the most important foundational moments in the emergence of the modern world, but also one of the most neglected within the social scientific literature. The following posts reflect on its omission from a new intellectual history of ‘equality’ and discuss how understandings of equality might be different if we took the Haitian Revolution seriously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To rethink human rights when they have become little more than hollow ideology in the hands not only of nation-states but of the UN as well requires a radical change in perspective. This article will thus look back to one of the key moments in the history of human emancipation – the Haitian Revolution – to ask whether it might hold, in its unfulfilled potential, implications for overcoming the contemporary impasse of human rights discourse. Unlike the earlier French and US revolutions, which extended putatively ‘universal’ rights only to limited categories of citizens (typically white, adult, male property-holders) Haiti was alone in the early-modern world in its implementation of an unqualified, immediate ban on human slavery. For all its daring originality, however, the Haitian intervention never lived up to its historical promise. Both internal political divisions and the international pressure of contemporary slave-holding states such as France and the United States consistently undermined the Haitian initiative throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the second part of this article, analysis of this historical process will lead me to consider the ways in which the works of Edwidge Danticat and Peter Hallward stand as contemporary interventions that remain faithful to this unfulfilled legacy of 1804. Repenser les droits humains au moment où ils ne sont plus que l'idéologie creuse des états de droit exige une transformation radicale de perspective. Cet article revient sur un des moments clés dans l'histoire de l'émancipation – la révolution haïtienne – et cela afin de voir si celle-ce peut imaginer des voies qui mèneraient par-delà les impasses actuelles. À la différence de ses prédécesseurs américains et français, qui octroyèrent des droits dits ‘universels’ uniquement à certaines catégories de citoyens (typiquement, des propriétaires blancs, adultes, et mâles) Haïti fut seul à procéder à une interdiction immédiate et non qualifiée de l'esclavage humain. En dépit de cette originalité, l'intervention haïtienne n'a jamais réalisé tout son potentiel historique. Des divisions internes, aussi bien qu'une pression internationale incessante des états esclavagistes de l'époque ont sapé l'initiative haïtienne à travers les 19e et 20e siècles. L'analyse de ce processus historique nous mènera dans la seconde partie de cet article à considérer la manière dont les ouvrages d'Edwidge Danticat et de Peter Hallward représentent des interventions contemporaines encore fidèles à cet héritage non concrétisé de 1804. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Until recent years and with several notable exceptions, there appears to have been relatively little interest in Haiti among scholars in the field of francophone studies. The article takes this apparent absence as its starting point, and explores the possible ramifications of a renewed attention to Haitian history and culture for studies of francophone postcoloniality. Central to the discussion is a series of French and British representations of the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture, dating from around the time of their subject's death in 1803, that have received only rare critical attention. The article suggests that any study of a ‘postcolonial’ Toussaint, evident in the work of authors such as Aimé Césaire, Bernard Dadié, René Depestre, Edouard Glissant and Jean Métellus, should take these earlier representations into account in order to elaborate a more complex account of francophone history and culture. The conclusion develops this reflection on the association of the colonial and postcolonial by suggesting the ways in which a renewed awareness of the implications of the Haitian Revolution might impact on postcolonial analyses of France itself. A quelques exceptions près, les chercheurs dans le domaine des études francophones se sont relativement peu intéressés jusqu'à une époque récente à Haïti. Adoptant cette absence d'attention en guise de point de départ, cet article met en relief les implications possibles pour l'étude du ‘fait postcolonial’ francophone d'un renouveau d'intérêt dans la littérature et la culture haïtiennes. L'étude est centrée sur une série de représentations françaises et britanniques du leader de la révolution à Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture – représentations qui datent de l'époque de la mort de leur sujet en 1803, mais qui n'ont que rarement attiré une attention critique. Selon l'article, toute étude d'un Toussaint ‘postcolonial’ – chez des auteurs tels que Aimé Césaire, Bernard Dadié, René Depestre, Edouard Glissant et Jean Métellus – doit se rendre compte des représentations antérieures afin d'esquisser une version plus complexe des histoires et des cultures de l'espace francophone. Cette réflexion sur les rapports qui relient le colonial au post-colonial se développe dans la conclusion de l'article, où l'on démontre l'impact considérable de la révolution haïtienne sur une analyse postcoloniale de la France elle-même. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]