Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Hernandez, Juan Antonio
Author's Email Address	hernandezjuan_antonio@hotmail.com
URN	etd-04172006-152726
Title	HACIA UNA HISTORIA DE LO IMPOSIBLE: LA REVOLUCIÓN HAITIANA Y EL “LIBRO DE PINTURAS” DE JOSÉ ANTONIO APONTE.
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Program	Hispanic Languages and Literatures
School	School of Arts and Sciences
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title JOHN BEVERLEY Committee Chair Alejandro de la Fuente Committee Member GERALD MARTIN Committee Member JEROME BRANCHE Committee Member
Keywords	Jose Antonio Aponte Haitian Revolution
Date of Defense	2005-12-13
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract In its first two sections, this dissertation offers a discussion of contemporary debates about the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), its relation to Western Modernity, and its immediate consequences in the Caribbean of the early 19th century. The argument begins with an extended critique of Modernity Disavowed (2004) and its theorizations of cultural “hybridity” and “alternative modernities” as a model for understanding the Revolution and the possibilities it opens up. Fischer’s perspective does not give sufficient attention to the political and cultural practices of the insurgent masses of slaves. To do so requires criticizing the prevalent distinctions between tradition and modernity or between the “pre-political” and “the political” in the most influential historical representations of the Revolution (CLR James, Genovese, Buck-Morss, etc). Following Alain Badiou’s reflection on the notion of “event”, the second part also interrogates the underlying historicism of some of these representations. These two sections function as a general background for a third, final one, which focuses on a historical document that is one of the most important expressions of the social imaginaries created by the Haitian Revolution in the Caribbean. This document is the record of the interrogation of José Antonio Aponte, a free black artisan, who lived and worked in Havana between the final decades of 18th century, and the first years of the 19th who was accused, in 1812, of being the mastermind behind a conspiracy against slavery and colonialism in Cuba. The center of the interrogation by the authorities was a cultural artifact of his own described as a “libro de pinturas” or book of paintings. This artifact –regarded by the authorities as the main evidence against Aponte- was clearly influenced by the Haitian Revolution and contained a vast amount of images that seems to be a kind of visual history of Africans and African descendants, including the leaders of the Haitian Revolution Toussaint, Christophe and Dessalines. Part 3 studies the description of some these images as a form of “political theology” concerned with articulating a genealogy for a form of statehood, suspended problematically between the teleology of modernity and a different, non-Western form, of historical teleology.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    VersionFinal1.pdf 2.85 Mb 00:13:10 00:06:46 00:05:55 00:02:57 00:00:15

If you have questions or comments please send mail to ETD-Feedback or view
the University of Pittsburgh Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) Project page.