Welcome to the new Intelek International

"Calypso and the Caribbean Literary Imagination"

University of Miami, Florida, in conjunction with the Historical Museum of Southern Florida,
March 17-19, 2005

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.