Forum, February 13, 2009: Exile and Cultural Inheritance in the Short Fiction of Jan Carew

February 13, 2009                                                                                                                                               

David Anderson, Department of English

"Exile and Cultural Inheritance in the Short Fiction of Jan Carew"

Jan Carew is one of the leading Caribbean intellectuals of the last half-century. Novelist, playwright, actor, film maker, government official, historian, and professor, Carew has spent his career examining Caribbean history and its rich varieties of culture, and searching for literary strategies to represent that richness. Professor Anderson’s talk will discuss Carew’s latest collection of short fiction, The Guyanese Wanderer, focusing on the many meanings of exile (historical, physical, and cultural) in Carew’s fiction, but also the themes of return and cultural reclamation that are central to this collection. 

The University of Louisville Faculty Research Forum is a forum for talks by our faculty and the occasional guest on humanities and social science topics of interest to interdisciplinary audiences.  These forums are sponsored by the Commonwealth Center with assistance from the College of Arts and Sciences.

      This year the Forum will be a joint project of CCHS and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research,  highlighting a range of justice-themed research on various social and historical issues.Faculty Research Forums are held in the Bingham Humanities Building, Room 300 and begin at 3:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted.

U of L professor chronicles experiences of African Americans who immigrated to Russia

U of L professor chronicles experiences of African Americans who immigrated to Russia
Writer:Larry Muhammad
2/8/2009 Louisville Courier-Journal

Post-Soviet Russia today is often thought of as a corrupt oligarchy that dominates neighboring republics through economic and military means.

But in the early 20th century, some considered Russia an egalitarian paradise, its Bolshevik Revolution a beacon of hope for the world's downtrodden -- including some African-Americans.

Hundreds of black professionals frustrated by racism in the United States -- farmers, engineers, teachers, artists and intellectuals -- rushed to this new land of socialist opportunity between the 1920s and 1940s, seeking the respect and freedom denied them in the land of their birth.

They're the subject of "Blacks, Reds, and Russians: Sojourners in Search of the Soviet Promise" (Rutgers University Press, 2008), a new book by Joy Carew, an associate professor of pan-African studies at the University of Louisville.

Click here to read full article

"Black Students in Red Russia" BBC Interview

BBC RADIO 4 Wednesday 14 January 2009

Black Students In Red Russia Wednesday 14 January 11.00-11.30am BBC RADIO 4

"In the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, Soviet-funded scholarships were offered to large numbers of students from developing countries to enable them to study in the Soviet Union. Presenter Burt Caesar tells the story of these students and finds out what happened to them...

"...Guyanese writer Jan Carew drew closely on the personal stories of students who travelled east for his 1964 novel, Moscow Is Not My Mecca. He shared a house with many of these students in London, a transit point on their journey. The programme includes an interview with Jan Carew, now in his late eighties..."

..  read more at the BBC Press Office 

Back Pedaling Into Mayflower Time': Malcolm X, C.L.R. James and the Black Radical Tragic

The Hunter College Department of English & Graduate English Club Presents:

"Back Pedaling Into Mayflower Time': Malcolm X, C.L.R. James and the Black Radical Tragic"

a presentation by

Jeremy Glick,
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Hunter College

November 24th, 2008, 7:30PM
11106 Hunter North

Professor Glick couples together some observations on Malcolm X's use of memorable lines from William Shakespeare during his 1964 Oxford Union debate presentation with an introduction to how he is reading C.L.R. James's use of the tragic in his historical writings on the Haitian Revolution. His commentary begins with an extended engagement with Guyanese novelist, critic, and political activist Jan Carew's reflections of his time with Malcolm recorded in Carew's 1994 memoir: Ghosts in Our Blood: With Malcolm X in Africa, England, and the Caribbean. Both Malcolm and James frame the tragic as a term that mines the importance of both the contingent and the strategic in challenging both liberalism and right-wing dominance.

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/~english/events/Jeremy%20Glick.html

This talk is free and open to the public.

Chats With Mentors: Thursday, March 27, 2008

4:00pm to 6:00pm March 27, 2008 Chat with Mentors: Pan-African Studies Celebration  (Talks) Jan Carew and Tchaiko Ruramai Kwayana, veteran educators in black studies, will discuss the challenges and successes of black studies programs in higher education. This is the first in a series of talks to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the master's degree in Pan-African studies March 27-29. Location: Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville Price: free Sponsor: Department of Pan-African Studies Contact:  tatall01@louisville.edu  502-852-4192 or 502-852-5985