Category Archives: Uncategorized

  I came to Martinique to learn more about the history and culture that produced the women I am studying, through my experiences of the land- and city- and seascapes as well as my reading.  But how does one come … Continue reading →

  The focus of my research is on the early decades of the last century, but I am very curious how much has changed in Martinique on the racial front since then, and what insights a comparison between the evolution … Continue reading →

Though I was reluctant to leave the comfortable and immediately familiar confines of the Bibliothèque Schoelcher, with its singing librarians, student groups clattering through, historic atmosphere and lovely smell of library binding, I needed to go to the Archives.   … Continue reading →

The problems of researching black women of the past were brought home to me two years ago, when I combined a trip to a Henry James conference in Paris with a trip to the Archives d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence (I had … Continue reading →

I saw, for the first time today, an imposing and oddly shaped mountain that hovers over Fort-de-France.  How did I miss it?  It is huge and abrupt and weirdly shaped. Like Mount McKinley, it is shrouded by dense, swollen clouds … Continue reading →

Paulette Nardal was born in Martinique in 1896, the eldest of 7 sisters.  Her father was the first black engineer in Martinique, but the racism of colonial society prevented him from having a job title that reflected the work he … Continue reading →

I’ve noticed something strange about the way I see things here.  Objects that I assume are large and far away are small and close by. An apartment building that the caretaker pointed out to me as a landmark for the … Continue reading →

Now that my children have flown the nest, my husband is working two jobs, and my research is taking me to unfamiliar places where they speak French, at least a couple of times a year I find myself in a … Continue reading →

I had given up my window seat to allow a family to sit together, but looking past the woman next to me who was fingering her rosary as our propeller plane tilted sharply, I could see the precipitous green mountains … Continue reading →