Scott Henkel
University of Wyoming, African American and Diaspora Studies, Faculty Member
- University of Wyoming, English, Faculty Memberadd
- Literatures of the Americas, Transnational American Studies, Critical Theory, Complexity Theory, Labor History and Studies, History of Slavery, and 13 moreThe long 19th Century, • Hemispheric American Studies, Latino/A Studies, Caribbean Studies, Caribbean Literature, Postcolonial Literature, Latin American literature, Latin American Studies, Latin American and Caribbean History, Democracy, Labor unions, Constituent Power, and Working Class Consciousnessedit
Winner of the C. L. R. James Award for Published Book for Academic or General Audiences from the Working Class Studies Association (2018) A provocative account of what motivates prolific mass movements teeming for revolutionary... more
Winner of the C. L. R. James Award for Published Book for Academic or General Audiences from the Working Class Studies Association (2018)
A provocative account of what motivates prolific mass movements teeming for revolutionary change
Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, Scott Henkel lays out a literary history of direct democracy in the Americas. Much research considers direct democracy as a form of organization fit for worker cooperatives or political movements. Henkel reinterprets it as a type of collective power, based on the massive slave revolt in Haiti. In the representations of slaves, women, and workers, Henkel traces a history of power through the literatures of the Americas during the long nineteenth century.
Thinking about democracy as a type of power presents a challenge to common, often bureaucratic and limited interpretations of the term and opens an alternative archive, which Henkel argues includes C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas, Lucy Parsons's speeches advocating for the eight-hour workday, B. Traven's novels of the Mexican Revolution, and Marie Vieux Chauvet's novella about Haitian dictatorship.
Henkel asserts that each writer recognized this power and represented its physical manifestation as a swarm. This metaphor bears a complicated history, often describing a group, a movement, or a community. Indeed it conveys multiplicity and complexity, a collective power. This metaphor's many uses illustrate Henkel's main concerns, the problems of democracy, slavery, and labor, the dynamics of racial repression and resistance, and the issues of power which run throughout the Americas.
Release date: June, 2017
A provocative account of what motivates prolific mass movements teeming for revolutionary change
Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, Scott Henkel lays out a literary history of direct democracy in the Americas. Much research considers direct democracy as a form of organization fit for worker cooperatives or political movements. Henkel reinterprets it as a type of collective power, based on the massive slave revolt in Haiti. In the representations of slaves, women, and workers, Henkel traces a history of power through the literatures of the Americas during the long nineteenth century.
Thinking about democracy as a type of power presents a challenge to common, often bureaucratic and limited interpretations of the term and opens an alternative archive, which Henkel argues includes C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins, Walt Whitman's Democratic Vistas, Lucy Parsons's speeches advocating for the eight-hour workday, B. Traven's novels of the Mexican Revolution, and Marie Vieux Chauvet's novella about Haitian dictatorship.
Henkel asserts that each writer recognized this power and represented its physical manifestation as a swarm. This metaphor bears a complicated history, often describing a group, a movement, or a community. Indeed it conveys multiplicity and complexity, a collective power. This metaphor's many uses illustrate Henkel's main concerns, the problems of democracy, slavery, and labor, the dynamics of racial repression and resistance, and the issues of power which run throughout the Americas.
Release date: June, 2017
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An excerpt from Chapter Three of Direct Democracy, "Nearly One Hundred Nat Turners: Collective Power in the 1831 Southampton County Slave Rebellion"
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Video of a talk given at the University of Wyoming on May 8th, 2017. The talk was sponsored by the Wyoming Institute for Humanities Research (WIHR) and the UW President’s Office.
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Video of a talk given at Sheridan College on February 25, 2017.
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Video of a talk given at the Campbell County Public Library on October 27, 2016.
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Promotional interview for the University of Wyoming's Saturday University lecture in Gillette, WY, 27 October 2016.
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Talk given to the Collective Dynamics of Complex Systems research group at Binghamton University, 19 October 2011. Available at <http://vimeo.com/30826218>.