Grinnell College to Host Lecture on Democracy and Culture in Haiti

Laurent Dubois, an award-winning scholar of romance studies and history, will give a talk titled "Democracy at the Roots: Culture and Sovereignty in Haiti" at Grinnell College on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2017. The lecture is free and open to the public, and will begin at 11 a.m. in Joe Rosenfield '25 Center, Room 101, 1115 Eighth Ave., Grinnell.

Dubois received his bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his doctorate from the University of Michigan. He is a professor of romance studies and history at Duke University, where he founded the Forum of Scholars and Publics. He is a specialist on the history of the Atlantic world with a focus on the Caribbean, specifically Haiti. He is the author of six books, the latest of which is titled The Banjo: America's African Instrument. In addition, he is the founding editor of the Soccer Politics Blog.

A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Humanities Center Fellowship and a Mellon New Directions Fellowship, Dubois received the Howard Johnson Teaching Award at Duke University, and the John E. Fagg Prize from the American Historical Association. One of his books, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804, won four book prizes, including the Frederick Douglass Prize.