Reading the Caribbean through Carnival

Catalog description

The Caribbean region and its diasporic communities are saturated with influences from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The course has four goals: 1) it examines literature written about Carnival experience 2) it identifies key festivals relations to ecology, colonialism, slavery, migration and capitalism; 3) it examines race, gender, sex, and class; and finally, 4) it explores popular carnival road march songs as an artifact of local culture and diaspora. Their lyrics are paradoxical indexers of misogyny, racialization, economic hardship, and visions of subaltern elevation. Students create their own road march to generate questions and ideas rooted in critical thinking. Reading list is designed for high levels of engagement.