Caribbean:
From Columbus to Globalization
Nature, Gender, Race
Spring 2004
9:30-12:20 Wednesdays Bliss 151
Instructor: Janet
Gray gray@tcnj.edu x2163
Office hours: Monday 3:30-4:30, Tuesday 9:30-10:30, Thursday 11:00-12:00 (Bliss 219)
Calendar of Readings and Assignments
First week (1/21) Where are we?
Introductions; mapping the Caribbean
World map (with south up) Map of Columbus's voyages Map of the Caribbean
Second week (1/28) What really happened between Columbus and the Arawaks?
Readings on SOCS: Selections from Columbus, The Four Voyages, and Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies; chapter one from Zinn, A People's History of the United States
Visiting lecturer: John Landreau, Department of Modern Languages and Women's and Gender Studies Program
Third week (2/4) Caribbean nature meets European nature, and....
Draft of first essay due; organize peer feedback groups.
Writing workshop: How do you recognize plagiarism, and how do you avoid it? (Check out this website.)
Readings on SOCS: Selections from Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange
Fourth week (2/11) Pirates of the Imaginary Caribbean
Visit with Matt Fury of the Tutoring Center
First essay due
Readings on SOCS: Rogozinski, selections from A Brief History of the Caribbean; Daniel Defoe, King of the Pirates
Fifth week (2/18) Slavery: A Recovered Voice
Reading on SOCS: Howard Dodson, "The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Modern World," from Sheila S. Walker, ed. African Roots/American Cultures: Africa in the Creation of the Americas. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001.
Book (in bookstore): Juan Francisco Manzano, Autobiografia de un Esclavo (read the Introduction and the text of the autobiography; read in either English or Spanish)
Guest lecturer: John Landreau
Sixth week (2/25) Witches, colonies, slaves: Gendered Histories
Reading (on SOCS):
From Verene Shepherd, Bridget Brereton, and Barbara Bailey, eds. Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspective. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
Hilary Beckles, "Sex and Gender in the Historiography of Caribbean Slavery" (pp. 125-140)
Digna Castaneda, "The Female Slave in Cuba during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century" (pp. 141-154)
Bernard Moitt, "Women, Work and Resistance in the French Caribbean during Slavery, 1700-1848" (pp. 155-175)
Maria Mies, "Colonization and Housewifization" from Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, eds., Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women's Lives. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Selection from Maria Mies, Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labor. 2nd ed. London: Zed Books, 1998.
Seventh week (3/3) Hegemony and resistance
Bring to class a current news article on Haiti.
Eric Williams biography - from afiwi.com ("It's for us" - news/information about/for Caribbeans)
Reading (on SOCS):
from Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro: The History of the Caribbean. New York: Vintage Books, 1970.
Chapter 12, "White Colonials versus Black Colonials" (pp. 177-200).
Chapter 15, "Down with Colonialism and Slavery! The Haitian Revolution" (pp. 237-254).
Edwidge Danticat, "AHA!" from Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, ed., Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women. New York: Hyperion, 2000.
Edwidge Danticat, "Children of the Sea" from Krik? Krak! New York: Random House, 1991.
Eighth week (3/17) From Slavery's End to the New Slavery
Workshop: review service learning
Readings on SOCS:
Eric Williams, From Columbus to Castro, Chapter 17, "The Abolition of the Caribbean Slave System"; Chapter 19, "Asian Immigration"
Verene A. Shepherd, "Gender, Migration and Settlement: The Indentureship and Post-Indentureship Experience of Indian Females in Jamaica, 1845-1943" in Shepherd, Brereton, and Bailey, Engendering History (pp. 233-257)
Ninth week (3/24) Identities and history: Bodies and the land
Workshop: Identities and history
Reading: Michelle Cliff, Abeng (book)
Visitor: Lisa Ortiz-Vilarelle, Department of English
Tenth week (3/31) Imagined Nature, Real Environments
Readings on SOCS:
Mimi Sheller, Chapter 2: "Iconic Islands" from Consuming the Caribbean: From Arawaks to Zombies. Routledge 2003.
From Green Guerrillas: Environmental Conflicts and Initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean
Charles Arthur, "Confronting Haiti's environmental crisis: A tale of two visions" (149-157)
Peter Rosset, "The Greening of Cuba" (158-167)
Marianne Meyn, "Puerto Rico's energy fix" (168-177)
Polly Pattullo, "Green Crime, Green Redemption: The Environment and Ecotourism in the Caribbean" (178-186)
Milary McD Beckles, "Where will all the garbage go? Tourism, politics, and the environment in Barbados" (187-194)
Friday, April 2, 7:30 PM: Required special event
7:30 p.m Showing of the film Life and Debt . (80 min. 2001) with presentation by director Stephanie Black
Combining traditional documentary with stylized narrative, the film examines the impact of globalization on Jamaica and shows how the day-to-day life of Jamaicans is influenced by foreign economic agendas.
Location: Music Concert Hall
Sponsored by Academic Affairs, Committee on Cultural and Intellectual Community (CCIC) , The Center for Social Justice, Communication Studies, School of Culture and Society, School of Business, International Studies Grant
Eleventh week (4/7) Local Effects of Global Forces
Reading: Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (book)
Twelfth week (4/14) Bananas
Film clips: "Bananas," "Copa Cabana," documentary on Carmen Miranda
Reading on SOCS (or from optional book* available at the bookstore):
Sheller, "Banana Republics and Banana Wars" (95-103)
Cynthia Enloe, "Carmen Miranda On My Mind: International Politics of the Banana" (26 pp)
Polly Pattullo*, Chapter 3, "From Banana Farmer to Banana Daiquiri: Employment"; Chapter 4, "Like an Alien in We Own Land"; and Chapter 8, "Reclaiming the Heritage Trail" from Polly Pattullo, Last Resorts: The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean.
Caribbean Banana Exporters Association - update on the trade situation
Thirteenth week (4/21)
Presentation: Cuba
Reading: George Gmelch, Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism (chapters 1, 2, and 8; also browse around in other chapters, reading about another 20-40 pages, and create a persona based on one or more of the people whose stories Gmelch relates.)
Fourteenth week (4/28) Sun, Sex, and Travel
Presentation: Vieques
Reading:
Denise Brennan, "Selling Sex for Visas: Sex Tourism as a Stepping-stone to International Migration," in Global Woman (154-168).
From Sun, Sex, and Gold: 68 pp.
Chapter 1. Kamala Kempadoo, "Continuities and Change: Five Centuries of Prostitution in the Caribbean" (30 pp)
From Davidson and Taylor, "Fantasy Islands": "Otherness and Western Men's Sex Tourism" and "Otherness and Female Sex Tourism" (11 pp)
Chapter 4. Nadine Fernandez, "Back to the Future? Women, Race, and Tourism in Cuba" (9 pp)
From Red Thread Women's Development Programme, "Givin' Lil' Bit fub Li'l Bit," "Blurring Boundaries (Or, the Gains of Maintaining Difference)" (5 pp)
Cynthia Mellon, "A Human Rights Perspective on the Sex Trade in the Caribbean and Beyond" (13 pp)
Finals week
May 5, 8:00-10:50 AM Presentations