Caribbean Dialogs [.com]
Telluride House, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
June 29-August 9, 2008
Faculty: Petrine Archer-Straw, Departments of Art History and Africana Studies, Cornell University, and Petrina Dacres, Department of Art History, Edna Manley College for the Visual & Performing Arts
Factotum: Joshua Garcia, Yale University
Caribbean Dialogs [.com] explores Caribbean culture through the prism
of its cultural products, art, music, and literature. Through cultural theory, the seminar will describe how
perceptions of Caribbean culture are historically fluid, defying easy categorization, and students will be invited
to question their own sense of identity, culture, race, and ethnicity. We will examine the creative spirit of the
region's artists to show how they are imaginatively reconfiguring their day-to-day experiences to meet the
needs of a changing world—at once apprehensive and charmed by black culture.
Using Caribbean art as a case study, this seminar explores themes such as new world history, colonialism, diaspora,
trauma, violence, and tourism. We will be working with weblogs and student web pages as integral parts of
class teaching as well as examining how the tools and techniques offered through the Internet shape our discussion.
This workshop combines rigorous scholarship, big ideas, copious reading, and real-time online conversations
to build an understanding of cultural life in the Caribbean region, allowing for the understanding of
another culture in an atmosphere that is at once academic, intellectual, and sociable.
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