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Institute in Paris

Dr Jackqueline Frost

Teaching Fellow in International Politics

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Person details>

Country

France

Summary of research interests and expertise

  • Intellectual history of decolonization 
  • Pan-Caribbean politics and culture 
  • Francophone postcolonial studies  
  • Global Cold War and nuclear culture

My expertise centers on the political and aesthetic theory produced by militant intellectuals between France and the Caribbean from the Second World War until end of formal decolonization (c. 1940-1980). With a focus on the transatlantic circulation of ideas, I explore links between politics, philosophy and cultural production using methods drawn from intellectual and cultural history, as well as cultural studies and political philosophy. I am a leading specialist of Martiniquan poet and politician, Aimé Césaire, and a member of the Groupe Aimé Césaire at ITEM (CNRS-ENS), where I conducted postdoctoral research. 

I have published on topics such as anti-nuclear and ecological struggles during the Global Cold War, the cultural policy of the Cuban Revolution and the Tricontinental, C.L.R. James and the London-based Caribbean Artists Movement, dramatic representations of the Haitian Revolution, gay liberation politics during decolonization, the poetics of antifascism in late imperial France and on Haitian socialist realism in the Third World communist movement.  

With my collaborator, Jorge Lefevre Tavárez (Universidad de Puerto Rico), I am currently editing the first anthology of Haitian Marxist theory in English translation for the Historical Materialism book series.  

My new project, “Nuclear Imperialism and Afro-Caribbean Ecology,” examines how Caribbean societies in the midst of decolonization were influenced by the world-shaking threat of nuclear disaster. This research links nuclear imperialism, terrestrial apocalypse and decolonial ecology by interrogating the Cold War political aesthetics of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter, Cuban artist Wifredo Lam and Martiniquan poet-playwright Aimé Césaire.

Qualifications

MA French Studies (Cornell University), PhD French Studies (Cornell University), Associated Researcher, Groupe Aimé Césaire (Institut des textes et manuscrits modernes, CNRS-ENS).


 

Publications

  • The Haitian Marxist Imaginary: Political Theory, Historiography, Aesthetics. Co-edited with Jorge Lefevre Tavárez. Historical Materialism Book Series, Brill, forthcoming 2024. 
  • “Nästintill horisontell epok: Batailles antifascistiska förståelse av det verkliga” [“Nigh Horizontal Epoch: Bataille’s Antifascist Conception of the Real,”], translated by Kim West. Georges Bataille, Motattack (Preface to Swedish edition of Contre-attaque), Stockholm: 1|21 Press, 2022  
  • “The Rumor of the Earth: Anti-nuclear Ecologies in Lam and Char’s Contre une maison sèche.” Continents manuscrits: Génétique des textes littéraires Afrique, Caraïbe, diaspora 18, 2022
  • “Queer Tricontinentalism?: Daniel Guérin’s ‘Cuba-Paris.’” Third Text: Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Art and Culture, 35.1 (2021) pp. 37-52
  • “Jean Genet’s May Day Speech, 1970: ‘Your Real Life Depends on the Black Panther Party.’” Social Text Online (Opens in new window)(2020)
  • “Tragedy of the Possible: Césaire in Cuba, 1968.” Co-authored with Jorge Lefevre Tavárez. Journal of Historical Materialism 28.2 (2020) pp. 26-60
  • “Aimé Césaire’s Cuban Documents.” Co-translated from Spanish with Jorge Lefevre Tavárez. Includes “National Culture, Colonialism, Neo-colonialism” and “Interview with Sonia Aratán.” Journal of Historical Materialism 28.2 (2020) pp. 61-75
  • “The Funeral of C.L.R. James.” Verso Books Blog(Opens in new window) (2019) and in French translation: “Les obsèques de C.L.R. James.” Contretemps (Opens in new window)(2020)  
  • Daniel Guérin’s “Toward an Extra-parliamentary Opposition.” Translated from French with introduction. Verso Books Blog(Opens in new window) (2020) 
  • “Experiments in Political Inheritance: Jean Genet’s Legacy in Post-Algerian France.” Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies, 10.2 (2019) pp. 3-13.  
  • “The Red Hour: Poetic Violence and the Time of Transformation in Aimé Césaire’s Et les chiens se taisaient.” The Global South 11(1): 57 (2018) pp. 57-81.  
  • Portuguese translation (Brazil): ‘“A Hora Vermelha”: violência poética e o tempo da transformação em Et les chiens se taisaient de Aimé Césaire.’ Revista Maracanan 29 (2022) pp. 198-220.  
  • French translation, extracts (Haiti): “La Valeur de révolte: sur l’émergence philosophique d’un sujet de la rébellion chez Césaire.” Trois/Cent/Soixante No. 3 (2019) pp. 62-69.  

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