News Releases

UWI hosts Conference on West Indian Literature

For Release Upon Receipt - October 6, 2011

St. Augustine


The Department of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Humanities & Education, UWI, will host the 30th Anniversary Conference on West Indian Literature from October 13-15, 2011 at The Learning Resource Centre, UWI St Augustine. The conference titled, “I Dream to Change the World: Literature and Social Transformation,” will seek to encourage debate and dialogue about the quality of life currently available to citizens of the region.    

This year’s conference will be opened with a feature address by Dr. Erna Brodber, Jamaican novelist, sociologist and activist, known for her novels, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1989) and Louisiana (1994). Also speaking at the conference will be Caribbean science fiction and fantasy writer, Nalo Hopkinson, who will read from her work and facilitate a Writers Workshop. Her books include Brown Girl in the Ring (1998), Midnight Robber (2000) and The Salt Roads (2003). Other invited guests include Rawle Gibbons (director, playwright and dramatist) and Merle Hodge (novelist and activist) who will deliver the plenary lectures on Thursday and Saturday respectively.  

The Conference on West Indian Literature has been hosted in the past by the various UWI campuses throughout the region as well as the University of Miami. It is expected that this year, approximately 70 participants made up of academics, writers, theorists and activists from across the Caribbean, Florida and India will present papers on a broad range of topics in cultural media such as literature, language, film, visual arts and popular culture. Presentation titles include Literatures Potential in Inspiring Social Change, Caribbean Social Policy, Crime, Criminality and Literature, Genders and Sexualities, Landscape, Environment and Literature, Trauma and Healing, and Refashioning the Nation.

For further information on the 30th Anniversary Conference on West Indian Literature, please contact Dr. Geraldine Skeete at Geraldine.Skeete@sta.uwi.edu or Dr. Giselle Rampaul at Giselle.Rampaul@sta.uwi.edu. You may also visit the conference website at http://sta.uwi.edu/conferences/11/literature.

 

About UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

(Please note that the registered name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

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