Organized by the Department of Literatures in English, Mona Campus, University of the West Indies, Jamaica, in association with St. George’s University, Grenada

Theme: CARIBBEAN CRITICAL TRADITIONS

Caribbean writers and intellectuals have formulated critical models for reading Caribbean literary and cultural expression in terms of the socio-cultural and linguistic particulars of the archipelago. These theories, whether explicitly formulated in theoretical/critical essays, or implicitly in the creative practices of writers, constitute a range of critical traditions that have forged some of the most productive theoretical concepts in postcolonial criticism. Given the significance of these critical traditions, the 23rd Annual Conference on West Indian Literature seeks to highlight the range of theoretical formulations, the intellectual genealogies, the polemical quarrels, issues of representation, and the interplay of conceptual categories and the transformation of critical languages. The organizers are particularly interested in inter-disciplinary papers that explore influences and exchanges across diverse intellectual domains.

Possible topics could include:

• Criticism, Diaspora, and Tradition
• The Gender of Critical Thought
• Tracing Traditions: Quarrels, Histories
• Policing Tradition: Boundaries and Border Clashes
• Caribbean Journals and Critical Genealogies
• The Global, the Postmodern, and the Postcolonial
• Race and the Caribbean Critical Imagination
• Language and Criticism
• Aesthetics and Politics
  Criticism and Popular Culture
• Caribbean Critical Reflections in the Post 9/11 World
• Technology and Critical Transformation

Deadline for submission of title and abstract: December 15, 2003.

Papers should conform to the allotted twenty minutes of presentation time. Proposals should include: a one-page abstract (no more than 250 words), the author’s name, postal and e-mail address and home institution (if applicable) and a brief biography (50 words or less).

Registration Fee: faculty from Universities outside of the region--US $50; graduate students from outside the region--US $20; faculty from the Caribbean--US $30; graduate students from the Caribbean--Free.