From the Caribbean to North America and Back
Processes of Transculturation in Literature, Popular Culture and the New Media
The Caribbean has been a zone of extreme cultural encounters between indigenous, European, African, Asian and Arabic peoples. This phenomenon emerged in the course of colonization, slave trade and general migration. Today, the Caribbean has changed towards a zone of emigration. Very often, the land of preferred choice appears to be the United States of America, which continues to gain political and economic influence in the Caribbean region. Moreover, the US is a relatively heterogeneous cultural space.
The working group endeavors to analyze the processes of cultural exchange in literature, popular culture and the new media in the transnational space comprised of the Caribbean, the Caribbean "Diasporas" and North America. Starting point of the analysis are the ties between the Caribbean archipelago and the United States in the 20th and 21st century. The main focus will be on new links in and due to cultural modes of expressions in the major immigration hubs in North America and their repercussions on “original” Caribbean cultures, a process initiated by circular migration patterns and improved communication channels.
Processes of transculturation manifest themselves in and by means of literature. This is the case if, for example, new or 'foreign' elements of contextual, aesthetic or any other language-related nature are adapted. Processes of transculturation are also present in the emergence of new literary hybrid genres or if new intertexts are being referred to. In popular music and the new media, such as web communities and blogs, similar phenomena of hybridization and (comic, heretic, and serious) adaptation can be observed.
Rex Dixon, "Go on then turn right" 2006, from the Writing Home series, medium " Collage with Gouache on watercolour paper" 12 inches x 8 inches (www.rexdixon.com) Owned by Dr Patricia Saunders, Miami, FL, USA.
I.Transcultural Spaces of Memory - Nuyorican, Dominicanyork and Haitian American Literature.
Dr. Anne Brüske, Junior Research Group Leader
II. Narratives of the Body: Coming-of-Age in Contemporary Caribbean Women's Writing in the Diaspora
Wiebke Beushausen, research assistant
III. Between “Murder Music” and “Gay propaganda” - The media debate about homophobic dancehall lyrics in the Jamaican press
Patrick Helber, research assistant
IV. Fabrics of Indianness: The Exchange and Consumption of Clothing in Transnational Guyanese Hindu Communities
Sinah Kloß, research assistant
V. Desde las dos orilas: Cuban and Cuban-American Identity in Literature and New Media
Ana-Sofia Commichau, associated member
Conferences
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28th - 29th September 2012
International Conference: "Carribean Food Cultures - Representations and Performances of Eeating, Drinking and Consumption in the Carribean and Its Diasporas"
[Programme]
[Announcement]
[Poster]
![[Poster]](http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/md/transculturality/food_cultures_final.png){kind=link}
Events
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July 11th 2014
Interdisciplinary Weblog-Workshop
„Under construction. Analyzing postcolonial weblogs with literary and computational methods”
[Invitation]
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January 16th 2014
Public reading with Ruel Johnson: “Fictions” (2013) and “Collected Poems, 2002-2012” (2013).
[Poster]
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17.12.2013
Workshop with Ruel Johnson: “Transnational Entanglements? The Locations of Guyanese Literature”
Organized by the junior research group “From the Caribbean to North America and Back”
Programme [PDF]
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July 18th 2013
Public Event: Travel, Transnationalism and Transference in Post-Independence Jamaican Art (Dr. Claudia Hucke, Munich)
[Poster]
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July 11th 2013
Public Event:
'Nu Caribbean Feminism': Politiken von Dekolonialität und Intersektionalität der queeren kubanischen Hip-Hop-Band Las Krudas (Dr. Julia Roth)
Reconstruction/refondation: Haiti zwischen Wiederaufbau und Neugründung (Jeanette Ehrman, Dipl.-Pol.)
[Poster]
![[Poster]](http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/md/transculturality/johnson_poster.jpg){kind=link}
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January 30th 2013
Public Event: "No where no betta dan yard? Negotiating Jamaican Identities and Sexualities between Jamaica and the Diaspora"
Campbell X (London) and Dr. Rochelle Rowe (Berlin)
[Poster]
[Live Recording of both speeches]
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December 5th 2012
Public Lecture: "Kala Pani Discursivity: Framing Indo-Caribbean-ness in a Comparative Francophone /Anglophone Context"
Prof. Brinda Mehta (Mills College, USA)
[Poster]
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June 12th 2012
art/o/phonic dialog with guerilla-art.mx (Mexico) and Daniel Bengsch (University Mannheim)
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January 18th 2012
Speech: "Familiengeheimnisse und Geschichtskosmetik: Fotos in den Texten kubanisch-amerikanischer Schrifstellerinnen"
(Louisa Söllner, Munich)
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October 5th 2011
"Werkstattgespräche": Karibik – Nordamerika und zurück.
Transkulturations-prozesse in Literatur, Populärkultur und Neuen Medien
