Alex Dupuy

Alex Dupuy is a retired sociology professor emeritus and author in the United States. He chaired Wesleyan University’s African American Studies department and was its John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology.[1] Born in Haiti,[2] he has written books and essays on Haiti.[3] An oral interview with him was recorded by Wesleyan in March 2019.[4]

Dupuy's work engages with the writings of Karl Marx and the history of capitalism. He argues for the primary importance of class in understanding the Haitian Revolution,[5] writing that race is a "purely ideological construct developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to justify the enslavement of Africans in the European colonies of the Americas".[6] He criticized the common understanding of how the Revolution affected Hegel's concept of the "master-slave dialectic", arguing that Hegel's racism and his ignorance about slavery in the Americas makes this supposed influence profoundly unlikely.[7]

  1. ^ "Alex Dupuy - Faculty, Wesleyan University".
  2. ^ Gros, Jean-Germain (2000). "Haiti: The Political Economy and Sociology of Decay and Renewal". Latin American Research Review. 35 (3): 210–221. doi:10.1017/S0023879100018720. ISSN 0023-8791. JSTOR 2692049.
  3. ^ McClendon, John H. (2005). C.L.R. James's Notes on Dialectics: Left Hegelianism or Marxism-Leninism?. Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739109250.
  4. ^ https://digitalcollections.wesleyan.edu/object/ohp-37
  5. ^ Fatton, Robert (2015). "Review of Haiti: From Revolutionary Slaves to Powerless Citizens: Essays on the Politics and Economics of Underdevelopment, 1804–2013". NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 89 (3/4): 358–360. doi:10.1163/22134360-08903024. ISSN 1382-2373. JSTOR 24713962.
  6. ^ Haiti: From Revolutionary Slaves to Powerless Citizens: Essays on the Politics and Economics of Underdevelopment, 1804–2013, Westview Press (1988), p. 75
  7. ^ Dubois, Laurent (2020). "Review of Rethinking the Haitian Revolution: Slavery, Independence, and the Struggle for Recognition". NWIG: New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 94 (3/4): 319–320. doi:10.1163/22134360-09403011. ISSN 1382-2373. JSTOR 27130316.