“A Splice of Space and Time”: Celebrating the Life and Work of Kamau Brathwaite
Critical Caribbean Symposium 2013
College of The Bahamas, Nassau Bahamas
November 22-23
CFP Deadline: Abstracts due 4 October 2013. Submit electronically to criticalcaribbean@gmail.com
“A Splice of Space and Time”: Celebrating the Life and Work of Kamau Brathwaite
Since the early 1950s, Kamau Brathwaite has been one of the leading producers of Caribbean cultural and intellectual discourses. Not just an award winning poet, the richness of Brathwaite’s verse is paralleled only by the depth of his scholarly essays in literary criticism, cultural theory, and history. With groundbreaking works including Four Plays for Primary Schools (1964), Rights of Passage (1967), Black + Blues (1976), Roots (1993), The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770-1820 (1971), and History of the Voice (1986), Braithwaite’s place as a major contemporary poet, philosopher and original literary voice of the Caribbean has been well-established.
Founded in Fall 2011 by Craig Smith and Keithley Woolward, the Critical Caribbean Symposium Series (CCSS) has evolved into a grassroots collective of academic and community participants. The mission of the CCSS is to engage in and facilitate dialogues and conversations around the many cultural, social, political, economic, and environmental challenges facing the Caribbean region today. The organizers of CCSS are committed to keeping its events free and open the college community and the general public. The first symposium “Frantz Fanon 50 Years Later,” focused on the life and work of this most important of Caribbean intellectual and this past year the theme was “The Caribbean Stage: From Traditional Theater to Modern Performance.” In its short two years of existence, the symposium series has attracted a great deal of interest locally and regionally and globally. Participants have come from as near as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados, and as far away as the United States, Canada and the continent of Africa.
The 3rd Annual Critical Caribbean Symposium will not simply honor the legacy of Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the man, but we will also grapple with the grand themes presented within the body of the Brathwaitian oeuvre, including issues of Afro-Caribbean identity, nation language, history, tidalectics, creoleness, and the Caribbean African heritage, among others.
The organizers of the symposium encourage interdisciplinary papers that analyze Brathwaite’s contributions to Caribbean politics, art, culture, language, gender studies and histories.
100-200 word paper abstracts or panel proposals, including 100-200-word panel description along with individual abstracts for up to 4 papers should be submitted to criticalcaribbean@gmail.com
We also invite proposals for alternatives to traditional panel sessions; we particularly encourage submissions of creative work (visual arts, short films, performance pieces, and creative writing) exploring the theme of the symposium.
The deadline for submissions is 4 October 2013.
Information about
Announcement adapted from CFP sirculated by conference organizers. Please contact them at criticalcaribbean@gmail.com with any queries.
