Caribbean Intransit Arts Journal (CFP)

*THE POLITICS OF THE VISUAL AND THE VOCAL IN CARIBBEAN SPACE*

From carnival costumes to music, from paintings to folktales, from sculptures to spoken words, artists and storytellers have used the cultures of the Caribbean Basin to create unique expressions that critically filter our perceptions of socio-cultural identity. These artistic forms are historical or more contemporary forays into the region’s politics and economies. In recent years, several artists have emerged to illustrate a shared heritage such as Laurent Valere in Martinique and Antonius Roberts in the Bahamas or have solidified their international standing such as Edouard Duval-Carrie. Artist-scholars such as Rex Nettleford and Leroy Clarke have interrogated the critical links and the constructions of identity realized through the artist’s eye.

The issues presented by these artists and scholars have created a platform for a more profound discourse involving identity, the arts and culture, political economy, media and communication and even technology. How do the arts and culture related to the Caribbean function in the political economy of communication? What gaps exist in the political economy of communication concerning the Caribbean that the arts and culture can begin to fill? How do they contribute to the negotiation of a social totality, an individual totality or a discursive totality?  In what ways do they assist in the directing of a social imaginary toward nationalist or regional thought?

This second issue will seek to explore intersections of as well as separate historical and current artistic expressions of Caribbean identity through visual or vocal modes of expression and how they relate to contemporary issues facing the Caribbean Basin today. How they influence, and interject in Caribbean politics and interpolate Caribbean subjects, and enter into a political economy of communication.

*We welcome 4000-5000 word essays in English. Artwork, music, dance, poetry, mas or junkanoo designs or any other artistic expression with blurbs in English, French, Spanish, Dutch, dialect or creole are welcome as well as films in any language with subtitles in English. Research papers on visual or vocal modes of expression as well as interviews of contemporary artists in English are also welcome.

Please send information to caribintransit@gmail.com <submissions@caribbeanintransit.com>.

Extended deadline for submissions is June 15th 2011.

All visuals should be sent in jpg format. Films should be no longer than 30 minutes. Please contact us for information on acceptable film formats.
Submissions are welcomed but not limited to the following themes.

The Arts

–                When music/ the spoken word meets politics: Caribbean social commentary through music ( calypso, rapso, zouk, reggae and other genres)
–                 The politics of Musical Fusions
–                Underground Movements- spoken word etc
–                The politics of Literature, Dialects and Orature
–                Photography and identity
–                Contemporary painting toward nationalist thoughtEntrepreneurship & Culture
–                 Morphing or Dying Cultural forms- from ideology, custom and culture to commercialism and commodification
–                The Arts in the Press, Media Management of the Arts
–                Support for the Arts-governmental, company, institutionsand programs etc
–                Building for the Arts/with the Arts in Mind
–                The Politics of Culture and Architecture
–               The impact of tourism on artistic expressions of identity/ Tourism & the Arts
–               Festivals
–                Regional integration through the arts

Documentary
– Bottoms Up-Constructing Caribbean Policies from the Arts and Culture
– Consultation and Artistic Resurrection
– Publishing and the Arts
– Archives, Orature and Posterity
– Visual Iconographies and post-post colonial identities

*Guest Editor : Professor Patricia Mohammed*

Patricia Mohammed is Professor, Gender and Cultural Studies and Campus Co-ordinator, School for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad.   She was formally educated at The University of the West Indies and The Institute of Social Studies in The Netherlands. From 1994-2002 she was first Head of the Mona Unit, Centre for Gender and Development Studies, UWI, Jamaica, and served as Acting Head of this Centre in St Augustine from 2006 to 2007.  From 2004 she was Deputy Dean, (Graduate Studies and Research) of the  Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI, St. Augustine. She has been a Visiting Professor at SUNY, Albany and is founder and current executive editor of the online open access journal *Caribbean Review of Gender Studies*  She has been involved in feminist activism and scholarship for over two decades and increasingly over the last decade in the field of  Cultural Studies and film. Her most recent publication is *Imaging the Caribbean*: *Culture and Visual Translation* (Macmillan, UK, 2009). Her publications include *Gender in Caribbean Development*, (co-edited with Catherine Shepherd), 1988, *Rethinking Caribbean Difference*,  Guest Editor, Special Issue *Feminist Review*,  Routledge Journals Summer 1998,  *Caribbean Women at the Crossroads*, co author with Althea Perkins, University of the West Indies Press, Kingston 1999, *Gender Negotiations among Indians in Trinidad, 1917 – 1947*,  Palgrave and Institute of Social Studies, UK and The Hague,  2001,  and *Gendered Realities*: *Essays in Caribbean Feminist Thought,* (ed)  University of the West Indies Press, Kingston, 2002,  along with numerous  essays  in journals and books, magazines and newspapers.

Her main areas of interest are gender studies, history and art and film. She has made ten films  including the documentary series entitled *A Different Imagination* . Her short film in this series, “Coolie Pink and Green” (2009) won the most popular local film award in the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival 2009 and was selected to open the First Pravasi Film Festival in New Delhi India in 2010.

She has  studied and worked variously in England, The Netherlands, Jamaica, Namibia and the United States and currently lives in Trinidad with artist
husband, Rex Dixon.