Hobart and William Smith Colleges

19 September 2007 Dahouda writes chapter for book

Assistant professor of French and Francophone Studies Kanate Dahouda has written a chapter in a new book, Perspectives Creoles: Louisiane, Antilles et Hati, co-edited by Jean-Max Guieu and Amadou Kone of Georgetown University and published by Presses Universitaires du Nouveau Monde (New Orleans 2007).

Dahoudas essay, emile Ollivier de linventaire du reel la migrance, deals with ways in which Olliviers heroes or heroines redefine their sense of belonging to foreign places where they seem cut off from their roots and their unitary self even if some of them remain psychologically at home in a strange land.

It also dispels myths around the figure of America as the absolute symbol of enchantment and incarnation of a Promised Land located on the Hill of the perfect existence.

The chapter has been described as an important contribution to the field of Caribbean and American studies in its successful attempt to enrich our understanding of the complex interplay between cultural memory social identity and political history in the Creole cultures studied in the book by a fine group of scholars.

Ollivier (1867-1895) was a lawyer and the author of seven books who served briefly as prime minister of France.

Dahouda, a member of the faculty since 2001, holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the Universite Nationale de Cte d'Ivoire and a doctorate from Universite Laval in Quebec.