Lectures on Tap - The Untold Story of Haiti, Voodoo and Poland

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "The Untold Story of Haiti, Voodoo and Poland"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Andrey Brylak

Join us for a captivating evening exploring the world’s first free Black republic and the surprising role white Polish soldiers played in its creation. Why did these soldiers switch sides and join the Haitian revolutionaries—and what became of them afterward?

Dr. Andrey Brylak will guide us through the rich intersections of history, politics, religion, and literature. We will trace the journey of a single religious painting from a sanctuary in southern Poland to its place within a Voodoo pantheon, and travel—through stories—to Cazale, a secluded Polish village in present-day Haiti.

Along the way, we will examine how Polish Romantic literature influenced Haitian politics and how both European Enlightenment ideals and indigenous traditions inspired the Haitian revolutionary movement. More broadly, we will consider a timeless question: Are revolutions fought for people, or for ideas?

Dr. Brylak is a USC lecturer in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, specializing in Polish Studies, intellectual history, theater, and modern literature.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

7:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

7:55 PM – Host introduction

8:00 PM – Lecture begins

8:45 PM – Audience Q&A

9:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

9:30 PM – Wrap up.