Symposium

The Caribbean Epistemologies Symposium

***This event has already occurred. Program archived below. Images from event here.***

Friday April 15, 2011
Skylight Room
CUNY Graduate Center, NY
Caribbean Epistemologies: Challenges and Conversations

How, in the post-colonial present, do we conceptualize the societies in the Caribbean? How do writers, scholars, and artists conceive of the Caribbean? The organizers of the Caribbean Epistemologies seminar invite you to join seminar participants and others in a day-long symposium on addressing these questions. The day will close with a keynote by Holger Henke (President, Caribbean Studies Association). Throughout the day there will also be a book table with copies of publications by seminar participants on display and for sale. Please see below for the full program. Please contact Kelly Baker Josephs, York College/CUNY or visit the following sites for more information about the seminar and/or the symposium: https://caribbean.commons.gc.cuny.edu/, http://centerforthehumanitiesgc.org/conferences

 

Program (PDF)

9:00 – Continental Breakfast and Welcome Remarks
Aoibheann Sweeney, The Center for the Humanities, CUNY
Kelly Baker Josephs, York College, CUNY

9:30 – Panel 1 – Rethinking Identity
The Making of a Panamanian Citizen
       Raquel Cherie Thompson, The New School
Magical Realism and Migration in Who Slashed Celanire’s Throat?
       Alison Klein, CUNY Graduate Center
Rethinking Chinese Jamaican Identity: Encounters with Easton Lee
       Tzarina T. Prater, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Moderator: Nicole Burrowes, CUNY Graduate Center

10:45 – Conversation 1 – Building Caribbean Community: Programs and Institutions
Elizabeth Nunez, Hunter College, CUNY
Anthony Stevens, Dominican Studies Institute, CUNY
Jerry Watts, IRADAC, CUNY Graduate Center
Rosamond King, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Juan Flores, New York University
Moderator: Ryan Mann-Hamilton, CUNY Graduate Center

12:00 – Lunch

1:00 – Panel 2 – Detours and Returns
A Vodou Weltanschauung: The Contemporary Haitian Historical Novel
       Alessandra Benedicty, City College, CUNY
Bricolage and Slavery
       Rose Rejouis, The New School
Creolization as Cultural Creativity
       Robert Baron, New York State Council on the Arts
“Measured by the Compass of Suffering”: Reclaiming Negritude’s Revolutionary Dimension
       Christopher Winks, Queens College, CUNY
Moderator: Kaiama L. Glover, Barnard College

2:15 – Conversation 2 – Caribbean Cultural Production
Lyn Di Iorio, City College and CUNY Graduate Center
Keisha-Gaye Anderson, City College, CUNY
Simone Leigh, The Studio Museum in Harlem
Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Independent Artist
Moderator: Stephen Narain, Iowa Writer’s Workshop

3:30 – Panel 3 – Contemporary Challenges
Specters of the Past and Present in Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise
       Barbara J. Webb, Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center
Beyond Selfishness: Decolonization and Social Responsibility in Jamaica
       Ted Sammons, CUNY Graduate Center
Queer Materialism and the Black Diaspora in Maryse Condé’s Crossing the Mangrove
       Christopher Ian Foster, CUNY Graduate Center
Allegories of Globalization: Narco-narratives in the Americas
       Jason Frydman, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Moderator: Donette Francis, Binghamton University, SUNY

4:45 – The ‘Caribbean’ in Caribbean Studies: From Postcoloniality to Everyday Life
Holger Henke, Caribbean Studies Association president, York College, CUNY

5:30 – Closing remarks
Herman Bennett, CUNY Graduate Center

This event is free and open to the public.