CLALSES: Professor Lauren Derby (History, UCLA) presents her 2025 book Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian Dominican Borderlands (Duke University Press)

Please join the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies for a presentation by Professor Lauren Derby (History, UCLA) of her 2025 book Bêtes Noires: Sorcery as History in the Haitian Dominican Borderlands (Duke University Press). The book explores storyteling of the history of spirits that present as animals, or bacás, and their complex history related to Indigenous dispossession but also symbols of liberation. Read more about the book here: https://www.dukeupress.edu/betes-noires

This Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies External Speaker (CLALSES) series is hosted by Professor Marcy Norton, Professor of History, in her Colonial Latin American History class.