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Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts

Routes to Roots of Caribbean Culture Course

Download the 2023 Course Programme

This short two-week intensive course moves beyond the sun, beach and sand modalities of experiencing the Caribbean and instead helps students develop an interdisciplinary understanding of the culture, history and socio-political factors that have given rise to this dynamic region. Special attention is given to moving beyond a linguistically singular and myopic vision of the Caribbean, to one that emphasizes its complexities and contradictions through a comparative lens. While we will explore the various routes of cultural formation, we will also explore the social institutions that shaped the region and the processes of socialization and indigenization that took root. Students will gain keen insights into the importance of the Caribbean in the creation of the modern colonial world, and the forging of anti-colonial resistance to Empire. As such, attention will be given to the resistive/oppositional practices that countered the dominance of the plantation and later shape the region’s cultural diversity.

Course Aims/Goals

The goals of this course are to:

1. Introduce students to socio-historical forces that shape the Caribbean.
2. Explore the diversity of the Caribbean region.
3. Introduce students to the analytical/interpretive tools for interdisciplinary studies of the Caribbean


Course Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

- Identify key features of the Caribbean natural environment, cultures and history.
- Describe the main social, cultural and political structures and diaspora flows that constitute the Caribbean.
- Discuss the impact of colonialism and the plantation on the formation of Caribbean societies.
- Evaluate the historical development and persistence of social marginalization and poverty in the Caribbean.
- Critically analyse the counter cultural oppositional practices that continually resist domination.
 

Teaching and Learning Methods:

This two-week intensive will meet daily (Monday to Friday) for morning and afternoon sessions totalling approximately six hours a day – [e.g. 9 am - 12 pm and 1 - 4 pm]. Afternoon sessions may involve field excursions, in class film screenings, special guest lectures and discussions, interactive class activities or a combination of any of the above. The course is a 3-credit approved University course in Caribbean Culture.

Films, PowerPoint slides and other audiovisual aids are included in the teaching tools and are a constituent part of the lecture materials and class discussions. Students will give presentations on coursework readings and help facilitate class discussions on their presentation topics. Students are also required to write weekly critical response papers integrating readings and course discussions as well as critiques of field excursions.

Contact us for further programme information:

Dr. Yanique Hume
Co-ordinator
yanique.hume@cavehill.uwi.edu


Ms. Jennifer Johnson
Secretary
jennifer.johnson@cavehill.uwi.edu


 

Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts
Telephone: (246) 417-4776 Email: fccpa@cavehill.uwi.edu
Office Hours: Monday to Friday, 8.30 am - 4.30 pm | Find Us