Beyond the Islands - Extending the Meaning of Caribbean Cultures

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
April 21-24, 2004

The Inaugural Event of the Program in Louisiana and Caribbean Studies
Co-Sponsored by The Center for French and Francophone Studies, LSU and the Comparative Literature Program, LSU

Until recently, work on the Caribbean has centered on the islands and has often been segmented into English-, French-, and Spanish-speaking enclaves. Seeking to locate bridges, connections, and conversations rather than boundaries, differences, and "turf" wars, this conference will explore the concept of a wider Caribbean that places the islands in a sea-region bounded by the coastal states of the American South, Mexico, Central and South America. Crossroads of the world for several centuries, scarred by histories of subjugation and exploitation, this Caribbean offers a unique view of the lines of power and development that have followed the trade winds.

Applying interdisciplinary, multicultural approaches to region, the conference will question old hierarchies, utopias, and practical protocols, examining and foregrounding the role the Caribbean plays in the imagining of transnationalism. We will be vitally concerned with concepts of nation, identity, colonization, alterity, diaspora, migration, exile, and resistance, but also with folkculture, creolization, hybridity, and dynamic forms of cultural production. In Edouard Glissant's encompassing terms "relation" and "tout-monde," in Wilson Harris's vision of the "womb of space," in Antonio Benítez-Rojo's notion of fractal relations, and in many other instances, writers of the Caribbean have approached their history and their mix of cultures with a reflective and an imaginative eye. The intent of this colloquium is to articulate some of the many visions that extend the meaning of the Caribbean, its experience and its cultures.

Invited keynote speakers include:

• Madison Smartt Bell / Goucher College
  
• Antonio Benítez-Rojo / Amherst College
  
• Hedi Bouraoui / York University, Canada
  
• Jean-Georges Chali / Université des Antilles, Martinique
  
• Michael Dash / New York University
  
• Sandra Pouchet Paquet / University of Miami
  

We welcome papers on literature, history, the arts (especially painting, sculpture, and vernacular architecture), foodways and popular culture.

Some suggested topics:

• The Caribbean and the American South
  
• Ethnic Traditions of the Caribbean
  
• Vernacular Architecture of the Caribbean Basin
  
• Caribbean, Southern, and South American Folklore in Perspective
  
• The Cultural Legacy of Caribbean Mexico
  
• Tourism as Link Between the Islands and the Caribbean Rim
  
• After Magical Realism: New International Styles
  
• Contrasting Female Identities of the Caribbean
  
• Carnival Cultures
  
• Modes of Caribbean Catholicism
  
• Afro-Caribbean Religions and Cults
  
• The South Asian Diaspora in the Caribbean
  
• Is the Black Atlantic also the Black Caribbean?
  

Please send one-page abstracts or completed paper to
Terri Ruckel
Department of English
LSU
Baton Rouge, LA, 70803

or: ">trucke1@lsu.edu

Proposals must be received by February 6th, 2004.