217 p., A comparative study of late 20th-century migration narratives by African American and Afro-Caribbean women, such as Paule Marshall, Toni Morrison, Jamaica Kincaid, and Loida Maritza Pérez. Informed by critical race theory, postcolonial, and feminist approaches to literature, this dissertation intervenes in literary studies of the African diaspora by underscoring the cultural and political implications that class and national differences have on intra-racial relations among Blacks.
172 p., Retention and graduation rates for minorities, especially African Americans, tend to be lower than for their White peers. Although much research exists on retention and factors that affect retention of African American students, very little seems to address African Caribbean students. The rationale for this qualitative study grew out of the researcher's desire to learn about African Caribbean students and their experiences at predominantly White institutions of higher education in the United States. The researcher hoped that the findings on the persistence of African Caribbean students may lead institutions and administrators to re-examine the current supports they now provide as they attempt to improve student retention for all students. The data collection methods included interviews, observations, and document analysis. The research sample included 10 African Caribbean students between the ages of 18 and 28 pursuing undergraduate degrees (Bachelors) and 3 administrators at two predominantly White institutions located in the New York area.
306 p., This project brings together adventure novels by white British authors, like Frederick Marryat, Mary Elizabeth Braddon and H. Rider Haggard, and African American and Afro-Caribbean texts by authors like Frederick Douglass, Pauline Hopkins, and Maxwell Philip, to argue that the sensational elements of the adventure genre that were so effective in developing British national identity were appropriated by African American and Afro-Caribbean authors to re-imagine national identity as a flexible and multi-ethnic concept.
164 p., Explores four contemporary novels and a film that rely heavily on photographic and mass-media images to illuminate, articulate, and critique modern-day Black urban existence: Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco (1997), Chris Abani's Graceland (2004), John Edgar Wideman's Fanon , Paulo Lins' Cidade de Deus (1997), and Fernando Meirelles' 2002 film adaptation of Lins' novel City of God . Chapters examine the ways in which photographic and/or mass-media images are used as narrative tropes or devices for representing the material conditions of an emerging slum existence. The author argues that each text reveals a preoccupation with the rise of global urbanism and visual culture as new types of discursive spaces--new kinds of "texts"-- that shape not only the real life of black people, but also the literary landscape of Black writing across the globe.
152 p., Sheds light on the importance of orality as it is embedded in the cultural traditions of the Colombian Caribbean. Examines the different ways in which orality is manifested and produced in Colombian popular culture and literature. Also explores the dynamics of "primary orality," in which orality compensates for the absence of knowledge or usage of a written alphabet, and "secondary orality," in which orality is sustained by a technological device, in this case the cassette.
85 p., This thesis is an attempt to explore the role that musical texts and physical spaces played in the development of a Rastafari public in post-colonial Jamaica. By examining theories of public formation outlined in Jürgen Habermas' The Structural Transformation The study positions the Rasta text (through Nyahbinghi ceremonies and the act of 'reasoning') as a self-authenticating, oppositional discourse which functions as a critique of normative constructions of reason. By tracing the musical text through Pinnacle, grounation ceremonies in Trenchtown yards, Soundsystems and Dancehalls, and recording studios, an understanding of the ways in which the Rasta text occupies both self-authenticating and oppositional positions simultaneously can be achieved.
409 p., By exploring how colonists and enslaved folk migrated across island boundaries, manipulated imperial tensions, and organized acts of collective dissent, this dissertation attempts to demonstrate the relationship between space, power, and imperial governance in the British Leeward Islands from the time of transnational colonization through their ascendency as black majorities. It examines the ways British empire makers struggled to turn a series of closely interlinked islands stretching from Guadeloupe to the Virgin Islands into a unified colony and how this effort was challenged by the development of a regional black identity that linked slaves across island and imperial boundaries in the early eighteenth century.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
361 p., Examines how the crisis of World War I impacted imperial policy and popular claims-making in the British Caribbean. Between 1915 and 1918, tens of thousands of men from the British Caribbean volunteered to fight in World War I and nearly 16,000 men, hailing from every British colony in the region, served in the newly formed British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). In Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, the two colonies that contributed over seventy-five percent of the British Caribbean troops, discussions about the meaning of the war for black, colored, white, East Indian, and Chinese residents sparked heated debates about the relationship among race, gender, and imperial loyalty. To explore these debates, this dissertation foregrounds the social, cultural, and political practices of BWIR soldiers, tracing their engagements with colonial authorities, military officials, and Caribbean civilians throughout the war years.
377 p., Examines the representation of history in the Caribbean novel during the era of decolonization. Exploring the period from the 1930s to the 1970s, primarily in Trinidad, Barbados and Guyana, the author argues that the predominance of historical thinking in many of the exemplary novels and works of the time was not only a response to the denial by colonialism of the history of Caribbean peoples. Such prevalence was also to be found in new class relations, which began to appear during the inaugural moment of decolonization in the 1930s when, throughout the British Caribbean, popular rebellions effectively meant the end of colonial rule.
112 p., On Wednesday October 11th, 1865, a group of malcontented men and women in Jamaica, a British colony, began a rebellion whose aftershocks echoed well beyond the confines of Morant Bay, the small town where it started. Although the initial rebellion lasted for just a few days, its brutal suppression and the implications that it held for the British Empire sparked a controversy that touched on some of the deepest fissures in British society at that time. At its heart, the rebellion highlighted the contested notions of power within the British imperial system. In Jamaica, disenfranchised local peasants rebelled to challenge a political system that excluded and oppressed them.
