The Black Caribbean

Course Description

This interdisciplinary course examines the history, culture, and lived experiences of people of African descent in the Caribbean, from the earliest encounters between European colonizers and enslaved Africans to the present. Drawing on anthropological, historical, political, literary, intellectual, and religious perspectives, the course traces the formation of Black Caribbean societies and the cultural, political, and ritual traditions that have sustained them. Topics include the transatlantic slave trade and the plantation complex; creole languages and religions; marronage and enslaved resistance; the Haitian Revolution; emancipation and its aftermaths; anticolonial movements and independence; race, color, and class in postcolonial societies; kinship, gender, and social organization; ritual life; ethnographic approaches to understanding contemporary Caribbean lifeways; and the Caribbean diaspora. Particular attention is given to the processes of creolization and cultural syncretism, and the ways that Afro-Caribbean peoples have constructed meaning through kinship, foodways, oral tradition, religion, and material culture. Through readings, film, music, ethnographic texts, lectures, and discussion, students will develop the analytical tools to examine how the legacies of slavery and colonialism continue to shape Caribbean life and how its peoples have responded through creative expression, political organizing, spiritual practice, and intellectual tradition.

Code

AFS 206

Credits

3

Subject

Africana Studies