In his paper, “Haitians in Cars Getting Nowhere: The Urban Crisis of (Social) Mobility in Contemporary Haiti,” Herbeck examined the function, status and commercial appeal of cars in the nation’s capital as articulated in two short stories and two novels by Haitian writers Yanick Lahens and Évelyne Trouillot.

Situating the four works at the by and large unexplored critical intersection of popular culture and postcolonial studies, Herbeck explored the driving forces – social, racial, economic and political – behind the struggles for and obstacles to upward mobility in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, today, as well as the frustrated and often unexpected collisions that result within and between communities when individuals find themselves veering uncontrollably into one another’s paths.