Symposium: Narrating the Caribbean: Food for the Soul or Food for Thought

Day 1: February 2, 2012 - "Politics of Food and Sexuality in French Caribbean Literature"

Time: 4:45p.m. - 6:30p.m.

Place: Niles Gallery, Lucille Caudill Little Library

"Savoureux Piment: The Fake Pornography of Gisèle Pineau and Dany Laferrière" by Valerie Loichot, Emory University

"Bon appétit: A Masculine Tale of Desire, Resistance, and Fear in Raphael Confiant's Mamzelle Dragonfly" by Jacqueline Couti, University of Kentucky

Sponsors: College of Arts & Sciences, African American and Africana Studies Program, LSA, Department of Modern & Classical Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Division of  French and Italian, Department of English, Department of Gender and Women Studies.

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Generally speaking, when people think about the Caribbean, they may have the motto Sun, Sea and Sex in mind. They may visualize tropical and hedonistic islands where they could go on vacation to have fun and relax. The Caribbean often remains a tourist destination until tragedy strikes, like 2 years ago with the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

What do we know really about the Caribbean, its people and its cultures? Could this space be anything else but a place to go on vacation and have cheap alcohol and sex or on a rescue mission, if not on community service?

Simplistic and stereotypical views prevent us from seeing histories of survival, of self-determination and resilience against all odds. What really happened to displaced populations from the African continent, put into bondage for centuries and then supposedly liberated and left to fare for themselves under the tight influence of external forces? Was the end of slavery, the end of the plantation system the end of their sorrows and struggles? What about the effects of western imperialism, colonialism or any other -ism one can think of?

To answer some of these questions, Valerie Loichot and Jacqueline Couti will examine the socio-political implication of sexuality, gender and violence in French Caribbean literature. Two years after the earthquake, Myriam Chancy and Nick Nesbitt will explore the controversial representations of Haiti in the media and discuss the future of Haiti's sovereign sustainability.

UK’s African American & Africana Studies Program in a partnership with the Lyric Theater & Cultural Arts Center, will kick-off Rebuilding the Block, the 2011-2012 S.T. Roach Community Conversations, on Saturday, December 10th with a Celebration of Black Men at 11 am. As the kick-off to the Community Conversation series, poet, professor and community activist Frank X Walker leads a salute to adult Men Making a Difference, young Men of Excellence & Promise.