Ph.D.

Biography

I am a professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. I am responsible for research, teaching, and service in Haitian Creole and French Studies, as well as the Humanities, Linguistics, and Literature. I have published books, textbooks, articles, translations, and edited collections.

Tézil and Hebblethwaite’s (2025) Haitian Creole textbook, Kreyòl pale: A Haitian Creole Textbook for Beginners (Library Press@UF and University Press of Florida), is a 29-chapter textbook designed for beginner learners of the Haitian Creole language. The textbook employs a communicative pedagogical methodology that emphasizes the learner’s acquisition of speaking, reading, writing, and listening skills through meaningful content. The textbook focuses on communication scenarios that are the most important for navigating daily life in Haiti and its Diaspora and it includes over 900 color images.

Hebblethwaite and Jansen’s (2023) edited book, Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas (University of Nebraska Press), explores spirit-based religious traditions in Canada, the United States, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Using interdisciplinary research methods, this collection of original perspectives breaks new ground by examining these traditions as typologically and historically related.

Hebblethwaite’s (2021), A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites (University Press of Mississippi), connects four centuries of political, social, and religious history with fieldwork and language documentation, analyzing Haitian Vodou’s West African origins, transmission to Saint-Domingue, and diffusion through songs in contemporary Haiti.

Past and Hebblethwaite’s (2021) translated book, Stirring the Pot of Haitian History (Liverpool University Press), provides the English translation of Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s (1977) Haitian Creole historical study, Ti difé boulé sou istoua Ayiti. In 2013 we received an NEA Translation Award to support our effort. We received Honorable Mentions from the Lois Roth Award of the Modern Language Association and from the Isis Duarte Book Prize of the Latin American Studies Association.

I received awards from the US National Endowment for the Humanities, the US National Endowment of the Arts, the US Department of Education, the UF Center for Latin American Studies, UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, and UF Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in support of research and publishing.

Courses Taught

• HAI1130 – Haitian Creole
• IDS 2760 – Historical Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence

Recent Publications

Books

• Tézil, David and Benjamin Hebblethwaite. 2025. Kreyòl pale: A Haitian Creole Textbook for Beginners. Gainesville: LP@UF & UPF.
• Hebblethwaite, Benjamin and Silke Jansen (co-edited and co-introduced). 2023. Indigenous and African Diaspora Religions in the Americas. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 1-342.
• Hebblethwaite, Benjamin. A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou: Rasin Figuier, Rasin Bwa Kayiman, and the Rada and Gede Rites. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. pp. 1-274.
•  Past, Mariana and Benjamin Hebblethwaite (co-translated, co-introduced, and co-edited). 2021. Stirring the Pot of Haitian History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 1-269.

Selected articles

• Rastafari Resurgence in Reggae’s Roots Revival Generation: Two Reggae Songs by Chronixx in Jamaican Patwa. Delos 34, No. 1, pp. 96–126.
•  Rap and the Islamic Lexical Field in Parisian French: A Study of Arabic Religious Language Contact with Vernacular French. In Le français dans les métropoles européennes. Edited by Françoise Gadet, pp. 167-184. Paris: Classiques
•  Sik salitasyon nan Rit Rada a: Patwon fondalnatal ak eleman patikilye nan salitasyon lwa Rada yo. Legs et littérature 9, pp. 95-114.
•  Historical linguistic approaches to Haitian Creole: Vodou rites, spirit names and songs: the founders’ contributions to Asogwe In La Española – Isla de Encuentros / Hispaniola – Island of Encounters. Edited by Barzen, Jessica Stefanie, Geiger, Hanna Lene, and Jansen, Silke, 65-86. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
•  The Scapegoating of Haitian Vodou Religion: David Brooks’s (2010) Claim that “Voodoo” is a “Progress-Resistant” Cultural Influence. The Journal of Black Studies, 1-20.