Haiti Reconstruction Topic of April 9 Conference at U.Va.

April 2, 2010 — An update on Haiti since the January earthquake will be presented in a conference at the University of Virginia.

"The Search for Solid Ground: Re-imagining Haiti," will take place on April 9. Most of the conference will be held in Brooks Hall Commons, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., before shifting to Monroe Hall room 130 for a multimedia presentation and reception with Haitian artist Edouard Duval Carrié from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Free and open to the public, the conference will bring together Haitian scholars and activists to discuss the political landscape in Haiti and the possibilities for social reconstruction. Rather than presenting Haiti as a political vacuum to be filled, the conference sessions will examine past and current efforts by Haitians to organize and empower their communities in the context of what is often characterized as a failed state. 

Panel discussion topics are scheduled to include: healing communities; crisis, violence and reconstruction; Haitian political futures; and a conversation with Carrié.

For the schedule, see uvahwg.wordpress.com/haiti-dialogue-series/.

The Haiti Working Group brings together U.Va. faculty, students, programs and associations interested in generating a critical dialogue about Haitian history, politics and culture in order to contribute to the post-earthquake rebuilding of Haiti for the Haitian people.

The conference is part of the group's Haiti 2010 Dialogue Series, sponsored by the Page Barbour Lecture Series; the South Atlantic Initiative; the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy; the Special Lectures Committee; the Carter Woodson Institute; U.Va.'s departments of Anthropology, French, Religious Studies, English, Art, Politics and Music in the College of Arts & Sciences; Studies in Women and Gender; Latin American Studies; Office of International Programs; the Vice Provost for Faculty Recruitment and Retention; Graduate Student Diversity Programs in the Office of the Vice President for Research; and the Office of African American Affairs.
 
For information, contact Yarimar Bonilla at yari@virginia.edu

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