Category Archives: Creole

2014 Conference

Posted on April 12, 2014 by wcd2

April 12, 2014 All these things that I didn’t know before the conference: Daniel Venegas’ Don Chiopote, the Creole folklore collected in Louisiana by the Federal Writers’ Project, and (I’m ashamed to say) Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, writing the story … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American music, Creole, Ethnicity, Food | Tagged Arjun Appardurai, Atlantic, Daniel Venegas, Don Chipote, Federal Writers Project, gastro-politics, Indian Ocean, Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss | Leave a comment

The Cosmopolitan Vernacular

Posted on February 6, 2014 by wcd2

February 6, 2014 Not an oxymoron, but a genetic condition, as Sheldon Pollock argues, a local tongue globalized in its emergence and globalized again in its circulation. Is that why so many African-American authors began with dialect poetry? Not only … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Creole, Dialect, Indian Ocean, Vernacular | Tagged Amitav Ghosh, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Edwidge Danticat, Ezra Pound, Jamaica Kincaid, Langston Hughes, Lascars, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Pisan Cantos, Sea of Poppies, Sheldon Pollock | 1 Comment

Banjo: Pete Seeger, Claude McKay

Posted on January 29, 2014 by wcd2

January 29, 2014 Of course he played the guitar as well, maybe even primarily the guitar, but I’ll always think of him with a banjo, that humble instrument brought over by the slaves, its simple form cradled in his, looking … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Auditory field, Creole, Music | Tagged Claude McKay, Constab Ballads, Marseilles, Occupy Wall Street, Pete Seeger, Songs of Jamaica, Woody Guthrie | Leave a comment

Zora Neale Hurston: American literature as World Literature?

Posted on August 14, 2013 by wcd2

August 14, 2013 The polemical essay, “World Lite,” just out in n+1, is perhaps generating more heat than light. But it does raise an interesting question: what exactly is “world literature”? How broad its scope, and what could be in … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Caribbean literature, Catholicism, Colonization, Creole, Diaspora, Global South, Igbo, Latin America, peripheral networks, Race, slavery, Twentieth century literature, World religions | Tagged " n+1, "World Lite, Congo, Dahomey, Guinea, Haiti, Harlem, Jamaica, loa, mysteres, Tell My Horse, Their Eyes Were Watching God, world literature, Zora Neale Hurston | Leave a comment

Jack Kerouac, Edwidge Danticat: Joual and Creole

Posted on October 10, 2012 by wcd2

October 10, 2012 The name on his birth certificate is Jean Louis Kirouac – that’s the most common spelling of the name in Quebec, which is where his parents were from. His father, Léon-Alcide, continued to work as a printer … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Americas, Atlantic, Autobiography, Canada, Caribbean literature, Cities, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Gender, Global South, Latin America, Libraries, Media, mexico, peripheral networks, print medium, Publishers, Radio, Twentieth century literature, Vernacular dialects | Tagged Creole, Edwidge Danticat, French, Gabriel Anctil, Haiti, Jack Kerouac, Joual, La Nuit est ma femme, Le Devoir, Lowell MA, New York Public Library, Québécois, Sur le chemin | 1 Comment

Atlantic Sound: Caryl Phillips, Thomas Pynchon, Richard and Mimi Fariña

Posted on August 22, 2012 by wcd2

August 22, 2012 At the end of The Atlantic Sound, Caryl Phillips is in Israel, visiting a community of Black Hebrews, almost 2000 of them, African-Americans who emigrated from the United States. They have given up their U.S. citizenship, but … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, African-American music, Asia, Atlantic, Black-Jewish alliances, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Creole, Diaspora, Educational institutions, Ethnicity, Mediterranean, Middle East, Music, oceans, peripheral networks, Remediation, slavery, Twentieth century literature, Universities, World history, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged African diaspora, African-American, Atlantic Sound, Benny Profane, Black Hebrews, Bob Marley, Botticelli, Brazil, Brooklyn, Caryl Phillips, Celebrations for a Grey Day, Israel, Jamaica, Joan Baez, Laurie Anderson, Radiohead, Redemption Song, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Tekiyah, Thomas Pynchon, V, Venus, Vheissu | Leave a comment

Oceanic Archives, Hong Kong University 2012

Posted on June 5, 2012 by wcd2

June 5, 2012 At least I’ve heard Elizabeth DeLoughrey before. She’s been working on this stuff for years, it’s always a pleaure to get a new installment — in this case, the ocean in danger of being reterritorialized by “seasteading” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Americas, Arabic, Chinese art, Christianity, Cities, collaboration, Creole, Diaspora, Ethnicity, Islam, mexico, Nineteenth-century literature, oceans, peripheral networks, print medium, Spanish, World religions | Tagged Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Herman Melville, James Ficter, Kendall Johnson, Keri Hulme, Manila, mexico city, Moby-Dick, New Zealand, Otto Heim, Phillipines, Puerta del sol, Samuel Enderby | Leave a comment

Cristina Garcia’s Cuba

Posted on April 11, 2012 by wcd2

April 11, 2012 We had to move the book up from the initial lineup — several people wanted to write about it in their final papers. How did they hear about it? But I should have guessed something like this … Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Ethnicity, Gender, Global South, Latin America, macro politics, Mayan mythology, mixed races, peripheral networks, Spanglish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged baseball, Bay of Pigs, Castro, ceiba tree, Celia del Pino, Cuba, El Líder, NIkolai Lenin, People's Court | 8 Comments

Edwidge Danticat: French, English, Creole

Posted on March 14, 2012 by wcd2

March 14, 2012 Her first languages were Creole and French. At 12, she spoke almost no English. At 26, her collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was nominated for the National Book Award. It’s mind-boggling to think of that trajectory … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Gender, Global South, Igbo, Latin America, Media, mixed races, peripheral networks, print medium, Radio, Remediation, Translation | Tagged Chinua Achebe, Creole, Edwidge Danticat, French, Haiti, Igbo language, Joseph Conrad, Krik? Krak!, literacy, mediascape, National Book Award, Paris Review, Polish, Radio Lumière | 82 Comments