Jamaican novelist to speak on the African American influence on African Jamaican behavior on Sept. 17

Date: Sep. 17, 2008
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Weinstein Hall, Brown-Alley Room

Jamaican novelist and visiting professor Erna Brodber will give a talk/fiction reading entitled, "African Jamaica’s America," on Wednesday, September 17 at 4:00 p.m. in Weinstein Hall's Brown-Alley Room. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of English and the Department of History.

A great deal of scholarship on the Caribbean assumes Europe's influence on Jamaican behavior. Professor Brodber argues that the American influence has been overlooked. In her fiction, especially Louisiana, as well as in her social history, she has been exploring the African American influence on African Jamaican behavior. In this talk she will be focusing on her fiction and reading selections from it. A cultural historian, social activist, scholar, and author, Brodber has done pioneering research on oral histories. Her first novel, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home, won acclaim for its experimental structure and its insights into the nature of community and in particular women’s struggles. In her novel Myal she reveals a Jamaican community’s spiritual consciousness and the recognition that spiritual restoration is essential for healing in the post-colonial context.

A community organizer and public intellectual as well as a novelist and scholar, Erna Brodber has received the Prince Claus Award, which celebrates the social impact of her work, and the Jamaican government’s prestigious Musgrave Gold Award for Literature and Orature. A professor primarily at the University of the West Indies, Erna Brodber has been a visiting professor at colleges in the U.S. and in Europe.

Posted September 3, 2008