Gade nan mizè-am tonbe

The Institute of Caribbean Studies, of the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras (UPR-RP), invites the academic community and the general public to the lecture “Gade nan mizè-am tonbe: Las prácticas del Vodou en Haití ante la crisis ambiental” by Dr. Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert,  Professor of Hispanic Studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair; Director of Environmental Studies and Director of Latin American and Latino/a Studies, and Professor, Program of African Studies, Vassar College.  Jean Ourdy Pierre, Ph.D. Candidate, Hispanic Studies Graduate Program, College of Humanities, UPR-RP, will comment the lecture. The activity will be held on Thursday, April 12, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Amphitheatre Manuel Maldonado Denis (CRA 108) of Carmen Rivera de Alvarado (CRA) Building, Faculty of the Social Sciences, UPR-RP.

This lecture will be broadcast LIVE online through the following website: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/cc71

Comments and suggestions on this presentation will be very welcome at: [email protected]

Abstract (No translation to English available):

“Gade nan mizè-a m tonbe” es una canción religiosa dedicada al lwa (o espíritu) Bwa Nan Bwa (Árbol en el Bosque) en la cual los creyentes imploran a sus dioses que observen la miseria en la que se encuentran. Con esta súplica como punto de partida, este estudio explora el impacto de la crisis ambiental haitiana—especialmente la aguda deforestación y la pérdida de los sagrados mapous—sobre las prácticas del Vodou. La discusión incluye un análisis de las formas en las que el terremoto de enero del 2010 ha exacerbado este impacto, sobre todo en las prácticas y creencias vinculadas a la muerte.

Caribbean Philosophical Association Conference, deadline extended

From Nelson Maldonado-Torres, CPA President:

This is to let you know that we have extended the deadline for submitting paper, panel, round table, and workshops proposals for the CPA 2012 conference at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine to this coming Wednesday April 4th.  The original deadline was tomorrow March 31st.  The conference will be on July 19th to 21st.  News of accepted proposals will be sent by April 22nd.

Proposals can be submitted in multiple areas, including, epistemology, phenomenology, race and gender analysis, slavery, liberation, decoloniality, women of color feminism, political thought, and arts, literature, and the aesthetic, among others.

The CPA 2012 conference is sponsored by the Department of Liberal Arts and the Office of the Deputy Principal at the University of West Indies, St. Augustine, in Trinidad.  The main organizer is Dr. Paget Henry, Brown University.

Confirmed participants include:  Mireille Fanon Mendès France, Lewis R. Gordon, Jane Gordon, Paget Henry, Charles Mills, Michael Monahan, Catherine Walsh, and Nelson Maldonado-Torres, among others.

For more information go here: http://www.caribbeanphilosophicalassociation.org/CPA_2012.html

Elizabeth Nunez reading at York College

On Tuesday, March 27, author Elizabeth Nunez will read from her new novel, Boundaries as part of the Provost Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series at York College. Author of eight novels, Dr. Nunez is currently a Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College, CUNY. Boundaries was selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice (see review here).

Event Details:
March 27, 2012
Noon to 2:00 PM
Faculty Dining Room AC-2D01

Professor Fabiola Salek (Department of Foreign Languages, Humanities & ESL) will introduce Dr. Nunez and there will be a book signing following the reading. Refreshments will be served.

 

Comments on Sylvia Wynter

by Christopher Winks, Comparative Literature, Queens College

Text: “Afterword: Beyond Miranda’s Meanings: Un/silencing the ‘Demonic Ground’ of Caliban’s ‘Woman’” by Sylvia Wynter

It was an excellent decision on Kelly’s part to have us read, study, and discuss representative essays by Wilson Harris and Sylvia Wynter, not only because both writers are part of the generation of the 1950s Caribbean Renaissance that contributed so much to Caribbean intellectual selfhood, and thus independence, but because in their complexity and indeed frequent intractability of access, they exemplify what to my mind Caribbean epistemologies aim at carrying out: a thoroughgoing questioning of dominant modes of knowledge in order to move outside these restrictive paradigms, grounded in the unique historical and experiential deep-structures of invasion, enslavement, colonialism, resistance, revolution, the decolonizing moment,  postcolonial disillusions, and new emancipatory possibilities.  Another immense Caribbean mind, the Cuban poet José Lezama Lima, declared that only the difficult stimulates, and it is precisely in their difficulty, in the vast range of cultural and philosophical reference that animates their quest for what Harris calls “a profoundly compassionate society committed to freedom within a creative scale” and Wynter “the lost motives of our ‘native’ human self-interest, and, increasingly degraded in our planetary environment, of our human self-interest,” that we as readers can ultimately find our surest inspiration and illumination. Continue reading Comments on Sylvia Wynter

“The Pleasure of Writing at Last a Language as One Hears It”

By Jeremy M. Glick, English, Hunter College

Comments on “Order, Disorder, Freedom and the West Indian Writer” by Maryse Conde and “In Praise of Creoleness” (translation of Eloge de la créolité) by Jean Bernabé, Patrick Chamoiseau & Raphaël Confiant

Focusing mainly on Maryse Condé’s piece, I present via propositional logic/further example some brief comments this afternoon to help advance today’s discussion.  I’ll restrict my comments here to signaling: (1) Some of the challenges generated by Condé’s keyword organization of her essay; (2) An example of Pan Africanist print culture (in this specific case radical pamphleteering) referenced in one of her footnotes that connects Newark, NJ, Guinea and the West Indies; (3) The problem of what we might think of as a friendly generative literary patricide that animates both pieces; and (4) The resonances in Black Arts Movement Afro-American literary formations.  Continue reading “The Pleasure of Writing at Last a Language as One Hears It”

Françoise Lionnet

Event at the Graduate Center:

“Paulette and Virginie in the Indian Ocean: Rethinking the Known and the Uncertain”
a talk by Françoise Lionnet

April 2, 2012, 5pm
Rooms 9204-9205
CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Françoise Lionnet is Professor of Comparative literature at the University of California at Los Angeles. Her teaching and research interests include: Comparative and Francophone literatures, postcolonial studies, African and African-American studies, autobiography, and race and gender studies. More on Professor Lionnet’s work and publications may be found here.

The event is organized by the French Department.

West Indian Literature Conference, Miami, 2012 – Update

***Extended Deadline: April 5, 2012***

The 31st Annual Meeting of the West Indian Literature Conference will be hosted by the University of Miami, Coral Gables from October 11-13, 2011.  The selected theme continues in the tradition of making critical interventions in debates in the Caribbean and the diaspora. The theme for the conference will be:

Imagined Nations, 50 Years Later:
Reflections on Independence and Federation in the Caribbean

Please see the call for papers below.   Continue reading West Indian Literature Conference, Miami, 2012 – Update

Third Seminar Session

Our next Seminar meeting will be on Friday, March 30, 2:30pm– 4:30pm in Room 9206 at the CUNY Graduate Center. We will be discussing selections from:

The Repeating Island:  The Caribbean and the Postmodern Perspective by Antonio Benítez-Rojo (selections from Duke University Press 1992 edition)

(These readings will be available here until the end of April and for the full year to registered seminar participants at The Center for the Humanities’ website.)

Our discussants for this session will be:

Maja Horn, Spanish & Latin American Cultures, Barnard College
Kristina Huang, English, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Discovering an Unpublished Eric Williams’ Manuscript

I received the announcement below a bit late (just today) but if you’re interested and free tomorrow there will be a live broadcast of the event.

Details:
“Discovering an Unpublished Eric Williams’ Manuscript: ‘The Blackest Thing in Slavery Was Not the Black Man’”
Dr. Brinsley Samaroo, Professor of History, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine
Wednesday, March 7
10am to 12pm Continue reading Discovering an Unpublished Eric Williams’ Manuscript

Second Seminar Meeting: Sylvia Wynter and Wilson Harris

Our next Seminar meeting will be on Friday, March 9, 2:00pm– 4:00pm in Room 9204 at the CUNY Graduate Center. We will be discussing:

“Afterword: ‘Beyond Miranda’s Meanings: Un/silencing the ‘Demonic Ground’ of Caliban’s ‘Woman’” by Sylvia Wynter

“History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas” by Wilson Harris

 (These readings will be available here until the end of February and for the full year to registered seminar participants at The Center for the Humanities’ website.)

Our discussants for these readings will be:

Barbara Webb, English, Hunter College, CUNY
Christopher Winks, Comparative Literature, Queens College, CUNY

Caribbean Brunch and Open House

Open House for Colleges and Universities
Saturday, March 3, 2012
1:00pm – 3:00pm, El Café
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th Street

El Museo del Barrio, Queens Museum of Art, and the Studio Museum in Harlem invite college and university faculty to join us for a light brunch and talk with curators about the upcoming exhibition Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, opening June 12, 2012. The day will include time to share your suggestions for incorporating the Caribbean exhibition, publication and programs into coursework, and how the museums can support your access to resources.

RSVP by February 29, 2012 at the El Museo del Barrio website Continue reading Caribbean Brunch and Open House