Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Michel-Rolph Trouillot (November 26, 1949 – July 5, 2012; PhD, Johns Hopkins 1985) was a Haitian American academic and anthropologist. He was Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He was best known for his books Open the Social Science (1990), Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995), and Global Transformations (2003), which explored the origins and application of social science in academia and its implications in the world. Trouillot has been one of the most influential thinkers of Afro-Caribbean diaspora, because he developed wide-ranging academic work centered on Caribbean issues. Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall holds that "Trouillot was one of the most original and thoughtful voices in academia. His writings influenced scholars worldwide in many fields, from anthropology to history to Caribbean studies".