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The Curriculum                               

Classes
     All classes will be held at the Jacmelienne Hotel or at the Alliance Française just beyond the hotel grounds. Three courses will be offered in the program and students must enroll in six credits (two courses). These courses are part of the regular curricula of the Tulane African Diaspora Studies Program and the Department of French and Italian. All classes will be taught by Tulane faculty. Courses include lectures and discussions on assigned readings, and preparation of a final project based on assignments and investigations on the island. Students will be required to keep a journal which will assist them in completing the final project. In addition to in-class activity, the program will also consist of frequent excursions to Haitian towns and villages, service projects sponsored by Haitian Ministry of Education, gallery and museum tours, lessons in Haitian Creole and a two-day trip to Cap Haitian to visit the Citadel and the ruins of the Palace Sans Soucci – Haiti’s monumental vestiges of independence and revolution.

     Classes typically meet Monday through Friday in the mornings from approximately 8:30am to 1:00pm. Afternoons will be reserved for service projects, Creole lessons and for exploring Jacmel and the surrounding area.

Course Offerings
Three courses will be offered. The FREN 301 course is required for all students and the second course can be chosen from the remaining two.  All readings and discussion in English.

FREN 301 - Haiti, Past and Present (Topics in French Cultural Studies) This course will examine the cultural history of Haiti beginning with the arrival of slaves from West Africa, an event Edouard Glissant calls the "moment of entanglement." We will consider the complex cultural and linguistic forms that develop on the island from the late-1600s to the present, with particular attention paid to the cultural negotiation of the island's most significant contribution to the region - the Haitian Revolution and the creation of the first independent black republic in the western hemisphere. We will also discuss the major intellectual and artistic movements, from Haitian Romanticism of the 19th century, to the indigénisme movement spearheaded by the anthropological work of Jean Price-Mars in the 1920s, to négritude and beyond.

 FREN 304 - African and Caribbean Literature All readings and discussion in English. This course satisfies the non-western requirement. This course will focus on the more recent literature of Haiti, beginning with Jacques Roumain's groundbreaking novel Masters of the Dew (1944) and continuing through to the works of the Haitian diaspora of the present (Edwidge Danticat, Dany Laferrière, René Depestre, among others). Of particular interest will be the way in which this literature dialogues with other literatures of the Caribbean and, more broadly, of the Americas, as well as how it responds to and inflects the European models it inherited.

ADST 330 Issues in African Diaspora Studies (3 credits) This course will explore the African Diaspora through literature, history and other cultural forms such as music and performance. In this eclectic and comparative analysis, we will consider contemporary concepts and issues within Diasporic discourse including notions of home and the mythology of origins; the social construction of identity and the evolving notions of community within various regions of the Diaspora. The chosen texts represent crucial parameters of the African Diaspora including Islamic African territories, the French and British West Indies, the Gullah Islands off the coast of the Carolinas to the Caribbean neighborhoods of New York and the American South. In addition to literary analysis, students will also explore the expansion of the African Diaspora and the myriad challenges posed by the Diasporic model, in private as well as public spheres.

 General Information                

Textbooks
     It is the student's responsibility to purchase all required textbooks and reading materials prior to departure. A list of texts and related material will be sent to students well in advance. Books will be available at Tulane University bookstore, or may be ordered through any university bookstore. Students outside the New Orleans area may choose to purchase their textbooks from the Tulane bookstore by mail.

Cost
The full cost of this three-week program is $3,440. This includes: 

• six Tulane University undergraduate/graduate credits
• housing at the Jacmelienne + two meals/day
• orientation sessions
• medical insurance
• on-island transportation to Jacmel and the return to Port au Prince
• excursions to Cap Haitian and neighboring villages.
• gallery tours, guest lectures and museum fees

Students should also prepare to spend some additional money on meals, local transportation, personal items and other incidentals.

Airfare
     The $3,440 cost of the program does NOT include airfare to and from Haiti. Students are responsible for making their own airfare arrangements and should estimate approximately $500 for the cost of the round-trip airfare. The island is serviced by American Airlines on a regular basis. Travel arrangements may be made through DMI Tulane Travel Connection in the University Center. Contact them at 888-8GO-WAVE, fax (504) 599-2121, or by e-mail: travel@wave.tcs.tulane.edu. Please identify yourself as a participant in the Tulane Summer Program in Haiti.