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Prof. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall earned a B.A. in intellectual history and political philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Stanford University. Before coming to CSUSM, she was Lucius N. Littauer Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2000, Prof. Sepinwall was one of thirty early-career scholars selected to participate in the International Seminar on the Atlantic World at Harvard University. Her research specialties include the French and Haitian Revolutions, modern Haitian history, Slavery and Film, French colonialism, French-Jewish history, history and video games, and the history of gender.

Her newest book, Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games, was published in June 2021 by the University Press of Mississippi. Her previous works include The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (UC Press, 2005; released in paperback, 2021) and Haitian History: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2012).

Sepinwall has served on committees of the American Historical Association, Society for French Historical Studies, Western Society for French History, Haitian Studies Association, French Colonial Historical Society, H-France, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, World History Association and Western Jewish Studies Association, and as a member of the editorial board of French Historical Studies.  She currently serves on the Advisory Board for H-France’s Fiction and Film for Scholars of France and the Haitian History Journal/Revue d’Histoire Haïtienne. She is a past winner of CSUSM’s Harry E. Brakebill Outstanding Professor Award (the university’s top honor for faculty), as well as of the CSUSM President’s Award for Innovation in Teaching.

Recent Publications

• Slave Revolt on Screen: The Haitian Revolution in Film and Video Games (University Press of Mississippi, 2021).
  • Interviews and podcasts on the book at:
    • New Books Network, interview with Prof. Michael Vann: https://newbooksnetwork.com/slave-revolt-on-screen
    • American Historical Review Interview podcast, with Prof. Andrew Denning: https://ahrinterview.libsyn.com/alyssa-sepinwall-and-andrew-denning-on-historical-video-games
    • Haiti Then and Now blog, with Prof. Celucien Joseph: https://haitithenandnow.wordpress.com/2021/03/01/haiti-then-and-now-interviews-professor-alyssa-goldstein-sepinwall/.
• Haitian History: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2012).

Selected public-facing work:

• “Earthquakes and Storms are Natural, but Haiti’s Disasters are Man-Made, Too,” Washington Post, Aug. 20, 2021,  [co-written with Emmanuela Douyon].
• “Perspective: The Bloody and Ongoing Fight of Haitians to Maintain Their Independence,” Ayibopost [Haiti], July 28, 2021.
• “How Hollywood Has Ignored the Haitian Revolution,” Black Perspectives [blog of the African American Intellectual History Society], July 16, 2021 (featured in TIME Magazine‘s History newsletter for July 2021).
• CSUSM, “Ask the Expert: The Assassination of Haiti’s President,”
  July 13, 2021.
• “Liberté, Equality, #ICantBreathe! Teaching the Age of Revolutions Using the NBA’s 2020 Summer Restart,” Age of Revolutions, Aug. 17, 2020.
• Radio Interview on Haitian History and the 2010 Earthquake, Chicago Public Radio, “Worldview” (with host Jerome McDonnell), Jan. 27, 2010.

Media Coverage

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/haiti/13465594; https://abcnews.go.com/US/colonial-era-debt-helped-shape-haitis-poverty-political/story?id=78851735; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/09/haiti-struggles-piece-together-sto

Social Media

@drsepinwall

Country Focus

Haiti, France

Expertise by Geography

Caribbean, France

Expertise by Chronology

18th century, 19th century, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Colonialism, Gender, Race, Rebellion & Revolution, Slavery, Women