Caribbean Questions: Exploring the Caribbean

When asked to conjure up an image of the Caribbean, what comes to mind? The geographies? The political climate? Its people? Its histories? In this course we will complicate and investigate the notion of 'the Caribbean' by addressing various questions each week concerning the region and its inhabitants. The central theme of this course is concerned with Caribbean identities and the weekly readings aim to recognize and honor the immense diversity of the region, notably by taking care to include work on the English, French, Spanish, and Dutch Caribbean. The knowledge of historical experiences and the resulting formations are necessary to wholly understand the creation and expression of contemporary identities. We will start attempting to define the Caribbean and then going into the three main theories of Caribbean identity and society formation: plantation society theory, plural society theory, and creole theory. We start with this because literature on identity formation in the Caribbean is often based off of understandings of these models. We will also examine the construction of national, pan-Caribbean, and diasporic identities. Throughout the semester we will also address various questions about specific Caribbean identities and how we understand them.