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AMERICAN TROPICS: TOWARDS A LITERARY GEOGRAPHY
Sex and the Caribbean

An Interdisciplinary Symposium at the University of Essex
Tuesday 3 May 2011. Organised by Jak Peake (LiFTS)

The Caribbean has been at the crux of discourse on human identity, sexuality and sex since Columbus’s contact with the region onwards. >From this early clash of cultures and bodies into the modern era, the Caribbean can be conceived of as an area of not only sociological engineering, but also of sexual generation. In the tourist literature of and about the region, Caribbean destinations are often portrayed as cosmopolitan, exotic and sexually permissive hotspots—even as prime locations for sex tourism.

Carnival, with its focus on dance, the body and masquerade, perhaps plays a contributing factor in the image of Caribbean sexual permissiveness. However, despite the ostensibly open sexuality of carnival, some parts of the Caribbean have proved staunchly conservative with regards to homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality.

This symposium considers issues of gender, sexuality, cosmopolitanism, exoticism, eroticism with respect to the Caribbean.

Readings and Discussion from Novelists-

Lawrence Scott
(Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Best Book in Canada and the Caribbean, 1999)

Monique Roffey
(Orange Prize Shortlist, 2010)

Sponsored by
American Tropics: Towards a Literary Geography (AHRC project)
Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

For further information see
http://www.essex.ac.uk/lifts/American_Tropics/Sex%20and%20the%20Caribbean.htm 

Beyond Calypso: new perspectives on Sam Selvon

Warwick University - Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies

2nd July 2011

Keynote speaker: Professor Kenneth Ramchand (University of Trinidad and Tobago)

Samuel Selvon is one of the Caribbean's most widely-read, popular and influential novelists, one whose works have, as early as their first publication, been granted classic status. While the author's significance is undeniable, historically Selvon's oeuvre has been read primarily to seek its insight into the lived experience of the Windrush generation, or its replication of the tropes and techniques of calypso. Selvon's work, though, has much more to offer than this. While expressing a strong, Caribbean-centred cultural identity, his writing demonstrates a perceptiveness that extends beyond its immediate context.

Beyond Calypso will seek to explore the richness of Selvon's work. In advance of the sixtieth anniversary of Selvon's first novel, A Brighter Sun, this one-day event will draw together new perspectives on the author in order to celebrate his contribution to Caribbean, British and postcolonial literatures.

Selvon's legacy will also be celebrated through tributes and the presentation of restored sound archives from the collections of the Centre for Caribbean Studies.

250-words abstracts are invited for papers that apply new or little-used analytical frameworks to the writer and his work. Topics can include, but are not limited to:

- New approaches to Selvon through the optics of gender studies, ecocriticism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism or others

- Creative works - including poetry, fiction and music - inspired by Samuel Selvon

- Readings of Selvon's less famous works, including his radio plays and short stories, and the novels: An Island Is a World and I Hear Thunder

- Re-engagements with or re-negotiations of existing critical perspectives on Selvon's work

Please email all abstracts to Malachi McIntosh and Stephanie Decouvelaere

at m.mcintosh@warwick.ac.uk by Friday 1 April 2011

 

CFP: Popular Culture in the Caribbean and the Caribbean in Popular Culture

The 2011 Annual Conference of the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association will be held on April 15 and 16 2011 at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras in San Juan.

The Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association, an organization uniquely situated in a space that synthesizes the Caribbean islands and their varied cultures with North and Latin American, European, African, and indigenous cultural traditions, welcomes proposals for its 2011 conference. For the 2011 interdisciplinary conference, the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association invites teacher-scholars to submit proposals that investigate the role that popular culture has played and continues to play in the construction of the Caribbean at distinct cultural, historical, and intellectual moments and papers that analyze representations of the Caribbean found in popular culture in specific cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts.

Proposals are welcome on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Caribbean Studies;
• Colonial and Postcolonial Studies;
• Film Studies;
• Creoles, Pidgins, and Languages that Build upon Different Linguistic Heritages;
• Television Studies;
• Music Studies;
• Travel Narratives;
• Children’s and Adolescent Literatures;
• Bilingual and/or Bicultural Texts;
• New Media Studies;
• Sports Studies;
• Food Studies;
• Visual Culture;
• Cultural Geography Studies;
• Advertising and Media Studies;
• Autobiography Studies;
• Oral Histories and Traditions;
• Transnational, Transatlantic, and Transpacific Studies;
• Interdisciplinary and Multimodal Texts such as Graphic Novels and Blogs; and Literary Studies

Please submit 250 word abstracts outlining your 15 minute proposed presentation by November 30, 2010 to Ricia Chansky and Eric Lamore, the Conference Coordinators, at cea.cc.conference@gmail.com. For more information on the conference and the organization, please visit the CEA-CC’s Blog (http://blogs.uprm.edu/ceacc/).

NB: If you are submitting a panel proposal, please submit one abstract that includes all presenters’ names and contact information. This single proposal may be up to 750 words depending on the number of presenters on the proposed panel.

All accepted presenters are required to become members of the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association. Conference registration is included in the membership fee.

Please disseminate this Call for Papers to other interested parties.

The Annual Conference of the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association is generously supported by the University of Puerto Rico and its individual campuses.

2011 Conference Theme: The Global South Asian diaspora in the 21^st century, antecedents and prospects.

Sponsors: The University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago), The Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick (Coventry, United Kingdom), and the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC), Trinidad and Tobago.

Venues: St. Augustine Campus, The University of the West Indies and Divali Nagar, Chaguanas, Trinidad.

Dates: Wednesday 1^st June to Saturday 4^th June 2011.

Please click here for further details.