Special thanks to the following agencies, who made my attendance
possible: The United States Embassy in Barbados; The Frank Collymore Literary
Endowment Award; The English Department of the Cave Hill Campus of the University
of the West Indies; and the National Cultural Foundation.
Overview:
The Conference provided an extraordinary opportunity to hear and interact with a
number of academics, artistes and activists on a variety of issues pertaining to
the intersection of calypso and Caribbean literature. There were three keynote
addresses and thirty panel presentations covering issues as diverse as "Soca's
Impact on the International Music Industry in the 21st Century" (part title of
one paper presented), the social, cultural, political, economic and gender issues
arising from women's involvement in Calypso and the uneasy relationship of "Calypso
and the Church" - the title of my paper.
A copy of the Conference schedule detailing the names of presenters and titles
of their presentations will be published on this site in due course.
My Presentation:
As indicated above, I spoke on "Calypso and the Church". I confess to feeling
just a "little" intimidated as possibly the only undergraduate speaker on the
schedule (Rudoth Ottley was introduced as an "independent scholar"). However, I
was confident of the quality of my work and am quite at home speaking in public.
The presentation was well received, though I was unable to share all that I had
prepared in the twenty minutes allowed each panellist. Copies of my Lewd Logic
CD were sold immediately after the presentation.
Some extracts from my presentation will be published here soon.