The Figge Art Museum and Dr. Marlene L. Daut present “Why Did 'Bridgerton' Erase Haiti?” -- May 20.

Thursday, May 20, 5:30 p.m.

Presented by the Figge Art Museum

One of the most popular recent series for binge-watching will be explored, and critiqued, in a special virtual presentation on May 20 with the Figge Art Museum's hosting of Why Did “Bridgerton” Erase Haiti?, Dr. Marlene L. Daut's webinar discussion of her article of the same title that examines the black aristocracy present in Haiti during the English Regency era, and how the Caribbean is often ignored by historical costume dramas such as Netflix's Bridgerton.

As Daut states at the beginning of her article, "Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton novels are mostly populated with white people like the regency-era England where they take place. The London of Shonda Rhimes’ Bridgerton TV series for Netflix, in contrast, is a multicultural mecca, sprinkled with Black characters of various skin hues, as well as a smattering of east and south Asians walking around silently in the background. There is even a Black queen and a Black duke.
"In the world of fiction – whether on the page, stage, or screen – such ahistoricity does not necessarily have to be an issue. We should not evaluate a work of art by how well it matches reality, or how faithful it is to history. But a work of art can and should be judged by the inspiration behind its creator’s vision. And this is where Bridgerton has a Caribbean problem.”

Daut is a professor and associate director at The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia, where she specializes in pre-20th-century Caribbean, African American, and French colonial literary and historical studies. Her first book, Tropics of Haiti: Race & the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1789-1865, was published in 2015 by Liverpool University Press' Series in the Study of International Slavery, while her second, Baron de Vastey & the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism, was published in fall 2017 from Palgrave Macmillan’s series in the New Urban Atlanti. Daut is also working on a collaborative project titled An Anthology of Haitian Revolutionary Fictions (Age of Slavery), which is under contract with the University of Virginia Press. She is the co-creator and co-editor of H-Net Commons’ digital platform H-Haiti, curates a Web site on early Haitian print culture at LaGazetteRoyale.com, and has also developed an online bibliography of fictions of the Haitian Revolution from 1787 to 1900 at HaitianRevolutionaryFictions.com.

The virtual presentation Why Did “Bridgerton” Erase Haiti? is free, but advance registration is required, and participants will receive an e-mail with a Zoom link two hours before the program begins at 5:30 p.m. on May 20. For more information, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.

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