Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa(Black Diasporic Worlds: Origins and Evolutions from New World Slaving)

Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa is a special volume on Jean Price-Mars that reassesses the importance of his thought and legacy, and the implications of his ideas in the twenty-first century’s culture of political correctness, the continuing challenge of race and racism, and imperial hegemony in the modern world. Price-Mars’s thought is also significant for the renewed scholarly interests in Haiti and Haitian Studies in North America, and the meaning of contemporary Africa in the world today. This volume explores various dimensions in Price-Mars’ thought and his role as historian, anthropologist, cultural critic, public intellectual, religious scholar, pan-Africanist, and humanist. The goal of this book is fourfold:  it explores the contributions of Jean Price-Mars to Haitian history and culture, it studies Price-Mars’ engagement with Western history and the problem of the “racist narrative,”  it interprets Price-Mars’ connections with Black Internationalism, Harlem Renaissance, and the Negritude Movement, and finally,  the book underscores Price-Mars’ contributions to post colonialism, religious studies, Africana Studies, and Pan-Africanism.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Price-Mars in a Local and Global Context: Rethinking Haitian Culture and Human History Celucien L. Joseph, Jean Eddy Saint Paul, and Glodel Mezilas Part I. Price-Mars and Haiti: Rethinking Haitian Culture, History, and Haitian Politics in the Twentieth-Century and Beyond 1. The Role of Price-Mars’ Thought in the Haitian Renaissance in the First Half of the Twentieth-Century Esther I. Rodriguez Miranda 2.Price-Mars and Black Public Intellectual Tradition in Haiti: Cementing Scholarship With Service Patrick Delices 3.Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars and the Impact of the United States Occupation on Haiti: 1915-1934 Patrick Delices 4.Jean Price-Mars: The Vodou Ethic and the Spirit of Communism Paul C. Mocombe Part II. Price-Mars and Black Atlantic Intellectual History and Culture 5.Francophone Black Identity and Jean Price-Mars William H. Alexander 6.From Harlem to Haiti: A Niggerati Renaissance in Caribbean Negritude Tammie Jenkins 7.Jean Price-Mars’s Brazilian Connection: Arthur Ramos Reads Haiti Myriam Mompoint Part III. Price-Mars, Pan-Africanism, and the Meaning of Africa 8.Africa in the History of Ideas in Haiti Glodel Mezilas 9.What is Africa to Me? Jean Price-Mars and the Significance of An African Collective Identity in Haiti Patrick Delices 10.Jean Price-Mars and the Roots of the Dynamics between Antillanité, Créolité, and Pan-Africanism Moussa Traore 11. The Possibility and Impossibility of God in Africa: Price-Mars, the African Islamic Tradition, and Early African Christianity Celucien L. Joseph

About the Author :
Celucien L. Joseph is assistant professor of English at Indian River State College. Jean Eddy Saint Paul is professor of Africana Studies and the founding director of the CUNY Haitian Studies Institute. Glodel Mezillas is an independent scholar.

Review :
Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa is an interesting and welcome exploration and analysis of the scholarly contributions of Jean-Price Mars. Price-Mars was a major figure in Haitian intellectual history who played a critical role in the development of ‘Negritude.’ The volume covers a void by making Price-Mars’s thinking on race, religion, and modernity accessible to the English-speaking world. The different authors also offer fascinating theoretical interpretations of Price-Mars’s work and how it can illuminate contemporary social and cultural realities. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars in Africana studies and intellectual history. Between Two Worlds: Jean Price-Mars, Haiti, and Africa is an important collection that reflects on the work and intellectual impact of Jean Price-Mars, a titan of Africana thought. Price-Mars’s research spoke to multiple academic disciplines, including, but not limited to, Africana Studies, Anthropology, Geography, Sociology, History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Literature. Joseph, Mezilas, and Saint Paul have assembled an impressive line-up of thought-provoking essays that render the accomplishments, ideas, and influences of Price-Mars’s work visible to new audiences across academic disciplines in the hopes of creating a better, more humane world for Haitians and other people of African descent. This book is a must-read; it honors one of the major contributors to Pan-Africanist thought, Negritude, and Black Atlantic Humanism who deserves to be recognized and engaged in the struggle for a more humane world that recognizes equality between the races and the fundamental humanity of Black people.