Event

2010 will mark 50 years since the "Report on The Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica" was first published by the then University College of the West Indies. The Report, authored by M.G. Smith, Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford, validated the University’s sense of its social responsibility and remains one its most successful monographs, having gone through eight reproductions without change in form or content, becoming a most highly referenced document on the Movement.

2010 also marks the 80th anniversary of the Rastafari Movement itself, which has grown from a few visionaries struck by the coronation of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I in November 1930, into a vital force in reconstructing and elevating the African Presence in the Western landscape.

In recognition of these two anniversaries, and on the birthday of Pan-African champion, the Honourable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, the Institute of Caribbean Studies announces the inaugural Rastafari Studies Conference to be held August 17-20, 2010 at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies, under the Joint Chairmanship of Vice-Chancellor Emeritus, Prof. Rex Nettleford and Prof. Emeritus, Sir Roy Augier.

 

Call for papers

Interested scholars are invited to submit abstracts of no more than 150-200 words by April 21, 2010, for presentation of papers on any of the following themes:

‘Reasoning’ and Articulating African ‘Freedom’

Rastafari Thought and Philosophy

Rastafari and the City

Historicising Rastafari and the State

Rastafari Reflections: The Visit of HIM Emperor Haile Selassie I to Jamaica

Theocracy, Resistance and the Elaboration of Black Religion

Routinization and New Religious Movements

Interrogating Rastafari Icons & Iconographies

Rastafari Studies and Institutions of Higher Learning

Rastafari Communities and Sustainable Development

Rastafari and the Black Intellectual Tradition

Rastafari Tributes & Testimonies

Repatriation to Africa as Practice: Case Studies

Rastafari Geographies and Demographics

Regional and Global Reach of Rastafari

Rastafari and other Caribbean Worldviews

Universities and Corporate Social Responsibility

Social Movements, Change and Identity Diasporan

Citizenry Youth, Pedagogy and Rebuilding African Diaspora Communities

Family, Gender & Power in Rastafari

Staging/Representing Rastafari: Literature, Film, Media & Reggae Festivals

Rastafari Drumming Rituals

Health and Healing: Rastafari Ministries

Negotiating the Twenty First Century: Rastafari in the Global Moment

Rastafari and the Caribbean Arts

 

The conference welcomes creative and non-academic contributions through workshops, video presentations, artistic displays and other forms of expression.

Abstracts may be submitted to rastafaristudies2010@yahoo.com 

Final date for the submission of abstracts is April 21, 2010.

For more information visit our website: http://ocs.mona.uwi.edu/ocs/index.php/irc/