1. Diasporic Cultures in the Caribbean and Caribbean Literature: An Overview
Diáspora (en griego: διασπορά [diasporá], 'dispersión') implica la dispersión de grupos étnicos o religiosos que han abandonado su lugar de procedencia originaria y que se encuentran repartidos por el mundo.

2. Diasporic Cultures in the Caribbean
“The Caribbean is a region in which the aboriginal communities [Amerindians-- Arawaks, Caribs, etc.] were virtually exterminated, and replaced by peoples from Africa, Asia and Europe.” Louis James
names: West Indies/ the Antilles/ the Caribbean

3. Map of the Caribbean

4. Images of the Caribbean 1
Jan van de Straet’s engraving “America”--the new world as a woman

5. Images of the Caribbean 2
John Stedman
slave family life
image of happy slaves

6. Caribbean Literature--Chronology 1
Columbus’s “discovery” of the West Indies
1808 Britain and USA abolished slave trade
1838 complete abolition of slavery in British colonies
1845 East Indian indentured laborers in Trinidad; Chinese indenture in French colonies
1950 “colonization in reverse”: West Indian migration to England

7. Caribbean Literature--Chronology 2
The Federation of the West Indies
1962 independence for Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago; restrictions imposed on West Indian immigration to Britain
1966 independence for Barbados and Guyana

8. Caribbean Literature--Overview 1
Edward Kamau Brathwaite--“Little Tradition” (the culture of ordinary people) vs “Great Tradition”--the writer functions in, from, for his own society (cultural nationalism)
V.S. Naipaul--writer’s “self-cultivation” to get out of West Indies, a “destitute,” sterile void

9. Caribbean Literature--Overview 2
“New Day”--London West Indies
importance of West Indian poetry since Independence--openness to pop culture and esp. to music (reggae and calypso); appeal of public performance; acceptance of social responsibility poetry has a “function” (poetry vs fiction as a middle-class genre)
amateur poetic practice in the WI

10. Artistic Expressions of Caribbean Creolization ﹠ Caribbean Spirituality See