Alexander Gil Fuentes will offer the presentation “The Two Ellipses: Aimé Césaire’s First Play on the Haitian Revolution” in an online event sponsored by the Institute of Caribbean Studies, which is based in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras Campus. This is the third presentation in the Institute’s Conferencias Caribeñas lecture series. It will take place on Zoom on Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 5:30pm (AST). This event is open to everyone and will include a discussion with the audience.
Dr. Gil’s presentation will introduce the audience to Aimé Césaire’s lost play of the Haitian Revolution, “… Et les chiens se taisaient” (“… And The Dogs Were Silent”). Not to be confused with versions published later, this text tells the story of the Haitian Revolution and its hero Toussaint Louverture from the early days of the slave rebellion to the final victory of Dessalines in 1804. The key themes of the play and how they speak to our present moment will be discussed.
Dr. Gil is Senior Lecturer II and Associate Research Faculty of Digital Humanities in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University, where he teaches introductory and advanced courses in digital humanities, and runs project-based learning and collective research initiatives. In 2008, he discovered the earliest known version of the aforementioned play, which he later translated as “… And the dogs were silent.” This manuscript is available online. Critic Jackqueline Frost holds that this version of the play “sheds light on the work as a poetic vindication of the transformative character of violent revolt against the colonial system.”
Dr. Lowell Fiet, a retired professor from the English Department of the College of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras Campus, will act as respondent. Dr. Fiet, an expert in drama and performance studies, is the founding editor of Sargasso: a Journal of Literature, Culture and Languages. His most recent books are An Archipelago of Caribbean Masks (2019), Caballeros, Vejigantes, Locas y Viejos: Santiago Apóstol y los performeros afro-puertorriqueños (2007) and El teatro puertorriqueño reimaginado: Notas críticas sobre la creación dramática y el performance (2004).
Alexander Gil Fuentes will offer the presentation “The Two Ellipses: Aimé Césaire’s First Play on the Haitian Revolution” in an online event sponsored by the Institute of Caribbean Studies, which is based in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Puerto Rico–Río Piedras Campus. This is the third presentation in the Institute’s Conferencias
