Newswise — Williams College political scientist Neil Roberts, who specializes in African-American and Caribbean thought and theories of freedom, is available for background interviews on Haiti.
“The physical terrain of Haiti simply cannot withstand this level of devastation, which compounds the deforestation and building infrastructural decay,” Robert’s wrote in a recent blog post (“Haiti and the Metaphysics of Disorder” http://polisci.williams.edu/archives/1452).
“What has exacerbated Haiti’s inability to handled natural disasters is a combination of factors located directly in the 1804 Haitian Revolution, the external international community’s isolationist response to the Republic, the rise of factions internal to the polity after the U.S. occupation created a separation between the people and the state, and the ensuring breakdown of the environment after World War II.”
Roberts’ articles have appeared in the Journal of Haitian Studies, Caribbean Studies, Encyclopedia of Political Theory, and New Political Science, among others. He is working on a book titled “Freedom as Marronage: The Dialectic of Slavery and Freedom in Arendt, Pettit, Rousseau, Douglass and the Haitian Revolution.”
He is a member of the Caribbean Philosophical Association Board of Directors. At Williams, an assistant professor in the Africana Studies and the political science department, he teaches a senior seminar in political theory, Rastafari: Dread, Politics, Agency; and Douglass, Davis, Obama: Fugitive Democratic Theory.
Roberts received his B.A. in Afro-American Studies & Law and Public Policy from Brown University and his Ph.D. in political science with a specialization in political theory from the University of Chicago. He did his postdoctoral work in the department of political science and the Center for Africana Studies, at The Johns Hopkins University.
Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college’s 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their teaching and research, and the achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in their research. Students' educational experience is enriched by the residential campus environment in Williamstown, Mass., which provides a host of opportunities for interaction with one another and with faculty beyond the classroom. Admission decisions are made regardless of a student’s financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted.
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