Katharina Weygold
(Brown University)
“A Real Sense of Duty”:
U.S. Imperialism in Haiti and African American Women’s Writing
Nov 6, 2024, 12:15-13:45, P 204 (Philosophicum)
This lecture offers insight into the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934) and the complex ways in which African American women engaged with Haitian history during the occupation. It explores how Anna Julia Cooper’s and Harriet Gibbs Marshall’s historical writing challenged the dominant discourse about Haiti, which undergirded the occupation. Reading their work in the context of U.S. imperialism abroad and racial segregation and violence at home, it examines how Cooper and Marshall negotiated their own ideas about and relationships to empire, racial uplift, and diasporic solidarity.
Katharina Weygold (she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of American Studies at Brown University. In her dissertation, Katharina studies African American women’s ideas about Haiti and their activism, writing, performances, artwork, and interactions and collaborations with Haitians in the context of U.S. imperialism in Haiti from the U.S. occupation (1915 – 1934) to the Duvalier regime (1957 – 1986). Drawing on archival sources and oral histories, the project explores how focusing on women changes our understanding of the meaning of Haiti and U.S. imperialism for African Americans. Katharina holds an M.A. in Public Humanities from Brown University and an M.A. in American Studies from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.
You can download the poster for the event here.