This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Caribbean and Latin American studies, social and cultural history, women and gender studies, and diasporic studies. In addition, given the transnational and transdisciplinary nature of the books themes, it will also attract the attention of academics whose research focuses more generally on ethnic, postcolonial and Atlantic studies. The volume complements existing Caribbean titles across linguistic borders. However, its distinguishing feature is the intertextual unity, quality and visual imagery of the essays. The book explores the ways in which Caribbean writers, artists and literary scholars explore in their narratives a historical process embedded in genocidal, spatial and ecocidal violence seared in their pasts and their present. It draws attention intertextually to the way history shapes the memories of Caribbean writers, literary critics and artists, and the inventive ways they have found to remember the afterlife of those practices.
This collection of eleven essays is designed to highlight some important new voices who have been doing research on the general subject areas of the history and culture of the Caribbean. The essays in this volume also address a number of themes which are critical to developing an understanding of current scholarly work on the two broad subject areas. Among the themes examined are colonialism, slavery, and the involvement of the Christian Church in both colonial rule and enslavement. The essays also analyze the pre-independence and post-independence periods of the twentieth century, with examinations on topics that include prostitution, departmentalization, education, visual art, and the musical form known as Reggae. The purpose of this book is to stimulate discussion around these important topics based on the perspectives of a number of new scholars. The book is also designed as a teaching device, principally for courses focusing on Caribbean society, whether in the past or the present.
Caribbean Art presents and discusses the diverse, fascinating and highly accomplished work of Caribbean artists, whether indigenous or from the diaspora, popular or high culture, rural or urban based, politically radical or religious. This expanded edition has a new preface, and has been updated to reflect on recent challenges to the ideological premises and institutions of conventional art-historical practice and their connections to histories of colonialism, Eurocentricity and race. Two new chapters focus on public monuments linked to the history of the Caribbean, and the intersections between art and tourism, raising important questions about cultural representation. Featuring the work of internationally recognized artists such as Sonia Boyce, Christopher Cozier, Wifredo Lam, Ana Mendieta, Ebony G. Patterson, Hervé Télémaque, and more than 100 others working across a variety of media, this new edition makes an important contribution to the understanding of Caribbean art and its context, in ways that invite and encourage further explorations on the subject.
Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Culture is a collection of a dozen essays by Caribbean scholars living in the Caribbean and around the world. Each of the three sections of the book explores the Caribbean as a diasporic space through the lenses of literary and cultural systems. â oeNegotiating Borders: Women, Sexuality, and Identityâ examines the creolized identities of Caribbean societies, gender roles of women, impact of sexual tourism, and censorship of Latino gays and lesbians. The essayists in this section note that much work still needs to be done in academia to give voice to repressed Caribbean populations. â oeCreating Spaces of Caribbean Artistic Expression: Multiple Representationsâ focuses on how music, identity, art, and language depict the diversity of the Caribbean experience. In this section, the essayists examine how the process of creation extends to new cultural expressions. â oeDeconstructing the Diaspora: Caribbean Writers as Political Activistsâ takes into account the tension between oppressor and oppressed, a pressing issue for many Caribbean authors, and focuses on the role of writers in reconstructing Caribbean culture, politics, and history. In pursuit of a more comprehensive West Indian view, this publication provides a novel perspective on Caribbean literary, cultural, and historical experience. The essays featured complement each other in their representation of the multiplicitous Caribbean region with all its claims and anxieties. They cover a wide range of writers and diverse cross-cultural encounters within the Caribbean region and reflect on issues such as Caribbean identity, migration, and artistic form of expression. This publication cuts across geographies, cultures, and disciplines, enriching Caribbean scholarship by recognizing the Caribbeanâ (TM)s tradition of resistance and courage.
Unprecedented in scope, this book examines the modern history of the Caribbean through its artistic culture. Acknowledging the individuality of various islands, the richness of the coastal regions, and the reach of the Diaspora, Caribbean looks at the vital visual and cultural links that exist among these diverse constituencies. The authors examine how the Caribbean has been imagined and pictures, and the role of art in the development of national identity.
Examines the literatures of the Caribbean from an ecocritical perspective in all language areas of the region. This book explores the ways in which the history of transplantation and settlement has provided unique challenges and opportunities for establishing a sense of place and an environmental ethic in the Caribbean.
When Americans seek an escape from the worries and dilemmas of everyday life, the crystal blue waters and white sands of the Caribbean islands seem like the answer to a prayer. Yet this image of a tourist’s paradise hides a tumultuous history marked by strife and division over race, political power, and economic inequality. Olwyn Blouet explores the story of “the Caribbean” over the last 50 years, revealing it to be a region positioned at the heart of some the most prominent geopolitical issues of modern times. Navigating a rich mélange of cultures and histories, Blouet unearths a complex narrative that is frequently overlooked in histories of the Americas. In stark contrast to widely-read guidebooks, this chronicle unflinchingly probes two strikingly different worlds in the Caribbean islands—those of the haves and the have-nots—created by the volatile mixture of colonial politics, racial segregation, and economic upheaval. The strategic political relations between Caribbean nations, Cuba in particular, and the world powers during the Cold War; the economic transformations instigated by tourism; and the modernizing efforts of Caribbean nations in order to meet the demands of a globalizing twenty-first century market are among the numerous issues explored by Blouet in her efforts to redress the historical record’s imbalance. The Contemporary Caribbean also explores the proud histories of the region's many nations in sports such as cricket and baseball, as well as their famed cuisines, and the uneasy balance today between local traditions and the vestiges of colonial influence.
Cross-Cultural Studies is the culminating effort of a distinguished team of international scholars who have worked since the mid-1980s to create the most complete analysis of Caribbean literature ever undertaken. Conceived as a major contribution to postcolonial studies, cultural studies, cultural anthropology, and regional studies of the Caribbean and the Americas, Cross-Cultural Studies illuminates the interrelations between and among Europe, the Caribbean islands, Africa, and the American continents from the late fifteenth century to the present. Scholars from five continents bring to bear on the most salient issues of Caribbean literature theoretical and critical positions that are currently in the forefront of discussion in literature, the arts, and public policy. Among the major issues treated at length in Cross-Cultural Studies are: The history and construction of racial inequality in Caribbean colonization; The origins and formation of literatures in various Creoles; The gendered literary representation of the Caribbean region; The political and ideological appropriation of Caribbean history in creating the idea of national culture in North and South America, Europe, and Africa; The role of the Caribbean in contemporary theories of Modernism and the Postmodern; The decentering of such canonical authors as Shakespeare; The vexed but inevitable connectedness of Caribbean literature with both its former colonial metropoles and its geographical neighbors. Contributions to Cross-Cultural Studies give a concrete cultural and historical analysis of such contemporary critical terms as hybridity, transculturation, and the carnivalesque, which have so often been taken out of context and employed in narrowly ideological contexts. Two important theories of the simultaneous unity and diversity of Caribbean literature and culture, propounded by Antonio Benítez-Rojo and +douard Glissant, receive extended treatment that places them strategically in the debate over multiculturalism in postcolonial societies and in the context of chaos theory. A contribution by Benítez-Rojo permits the reader to test the theory through his critical practice. Divided into nine thematic and methodological sections followed by a complete index to the names and dates of authors and significant historical figures discussed, Cross-Cultural Studies will be an indispensable resource for every library and a necessary handbook for scholars, teachers, and advanced students of the Caribbean region.
