Lecture Series on “Caribbean Encounters”

Members of the Muhlenberg Center for American Studies intend to organize an interdisciplinary lecture series on Caribbean literature and culture from a transnational and global perspective. Special attention will be paid to the complex historical, socio-political, and cultural contexts of this unique contact zone, which has been shaped by different colonizers (Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United States), the “sugar revolution” and the transatlantic slave trade, the interrelations with hispanophone islands such as Cuba, and by the Carribbean’s geopolitical vicinity to the United States. Our exploration of the Caribbean contact zone will involve a variety of approaches ranging from postcolonial and creolization theories to concepts of hybridty in literature and culture.