“Gender and the Caribbean Body,” a Conversation with Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Gerard H. Gaskin, and Kettly Mars. This event is free and open to the public.

Monday, April 28, 2014
7:00 p.m. – 8:45 p.m. with reception to follow (RSVP encouraged)
25 Broadway, 7th Floor
Division of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Center for Worker Education of CUNY
New York, NY 10004 (Please bring photo i.d. for security)

From throughout the Caribbean – the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Trinidad – writer Kettly Mars, visual and performing artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez, and photographer Gerard H. Gaskin come together to discuss what it means to be a Caribbean artist operating identity at home and within the cultural centers of the ‘global north.’ How does an artist negotiate one’s nationality with one’s varying citizenships to communities throughout the many ‘Caribbeans’ that take form in Amsterdam, New York, London, or Paris? How do varying media and performance styles contribute not only to how art is created in the ‘Caribbean,’ but also to how the ‘Caribbean body’ is perceived by the general public? How is gender affected by these processes?

“Gender and the Caribbean Body” is the culmination of a multi-stage exploration of gender and sexuality sponsored by the CUNY Diversity Projects Development Fund and Barnard College. Organized by Alessandra Benedicty (City College), Kaiama Glover (Barnard College), Maja Horn (Barnard College) and Kelly Baker Josephs, this effort aims to provide an opportunity for sustained transcolonial discussion of gender in the Caribbean.

The goal of this proposed multi-stage program on “Gender and the Caribbean Body” is to bring together scholars and students working on the Caribbean from the Francophone, Anglophone and Hispanophone traditions to determine connections and disconnections across habitual borders. Discourses of gender and sexuality in the Caribbean are overwhelmingly limited to linguistic, and therefore colonial, parameters.  This semester, the “Gender and the Caribbean Body” reading group worked to speak across these divisions and on April 28, we open this discussion up to the public with a panel of three talented artists. More information on the panelists and the reading group can be found on the event website.

Facebook page provided by Africana Studies at Barnard College.