Carolyn Cooper is Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica where she teaches Caribbean, African and African-American literature. She also co-ordinates the University's embryonic Reggae Studies Unit, an academic project she initiated. Professor Cooper is the author of Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the 'Vulgar' Body of Jamaican Popular Culture (1993) and Border Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large, forthcoming, 2004.