The Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies, Mona, in association with The Western Jamaica Campus, will host the 35th annual West Indian Literature Conference at the Holiday Inn Resort, Montego Bay from October 6-8, 2016 under the theme “Archiving Caribbean Literature and Popular Culture”. Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, Dr. Carolyn Cooper, who will shortly retire from the Department of Literatures in English after 35 years of service to the UWI, will be one of three keynote speakers at the conference. Other keynote speakers are National Archivist, Mr. John Aarons O.D. and Professor of Cinematic Studies, Indiana University, Dr. Terri Francis. 

The conference is expected to attract approximately one hundred scholars from the region, North America and Europe. Participants will examine how the production, distribution, consumption and preservation of Caribbean literature and popular culture have benefitted from modern technological innovations, such as digital archiving and the explosion of social media. They will also consider how access to a globalized Caribbean literary and cultural archive generates new critical, theoretical, practical and ethical questions for critics, historians, and archivists regarding the sites of cultural production, consumption, and interpretation. Paper presentations will focus on the centrality of the archive in Caribbean literature as well as film, theatre, dance, music and fashion, and the conceptual, practical, spatial, and technological aspects of archival projects. The topics to be discussed include: Archival Politics, Theories, and Methods; The Body as Archive; Digital Archiving and Caribbean Literature and Culture; Creative Industries and the Archives; Archives, Libraries, Exhibitions; Vernacular Archives, Sound Archives or Visual Archives; Digital Caribbean 2.0: Social Media and the Caribbean Cultural Archive. 

A number of special events have been planned for the conference. The official launch of four books on Caribbean literature will be held on Thursday, October 6. A Cultural Night featuring musical performances and readings by established and emerging Caribbean writers, including Edward Baugh, Barbara Lalla, Velma Pollard, Rhoda Bharath, Tanya Shirley and Roland Watson-Grant will be held on Friday, October 7 at the UWI Western Jamaica Campus, Montego Bay. This event is open to the public. The conference will also pay tribute to Barbadian-Canadian writer Austin Clarke and Jamaican-American writer Michelle Cliff who both died earlier this year.  

Persons who are interested in attending the conference should contact the Department of Literatures in English at (876)927- 2217 or email litsengmona@gmail.com.