"'Penelope's Shroud': The French Empire, Haitian Sovereignty, and the Demi Droit Affair, 1825-1831"

Michael Kwass, Johns Hopkins University

This seminar will be offered in a hybrid format, both in-person and virtually via Zoom. Registration is only required for those who wish to attend via Zoom. 

Michael Kwass is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.  A specialist of eighteenth-century France, his research stretches from the age of Louis XIV through the French Revolution, examining questions of state formation, political economy, consumer culture, and globalization.  He is the author of three books.  His first book, Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France: Liberté, Égalité, Fiscalité (Cambridge University Press, 2000), received the David Pinkney Prize from the Society for French Historical Studies. His second book, Contraband: Louis Mandrin and the Making of a Global Underground (Harvard University Press, 2014), won multiple book prizes, including the J. Russell Major Prize from the American Historical Association.  His third book, The Consumer Revolution, 1650–1800, published last year by Cambridge University Press, reflects on the reflects on the social, cultural, and political implications of Western consumption before the age of the Industrial Revolution.  He is now conducting research on the ordinance of April 17, 1825, by which France imposed a massive indemnity on Haiti in exchange for recognizing the Caribbean nation's independence.