Marlene L. Daut, a literary and intellectual historian of the Caribbean, has been named the Chester D. Tripp Professor of Black Studies and of French, effective July 1.

She joined Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2022.

Her most recent book, “The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe” (Knopf, 2025), won the 2026 James Tait Black Memorial Prize in Biography, the 2026 Gilbert Chinard Prize from the Society for French Historical Studies, the 2025 Haitian Studies Association Book Prize and was a finalist for the 2025 Cundill History Prize. Her previous book, “Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution” (UNC Press, 2023), was the co-winner of the 2024 Frederick Douglass Book Prize, awarded by Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition.

Read the rest of the announcement here: https://news.yale.edu/2026/08/26/daut-named-tripp-professor-black-studies-and-french