Beyond Sea, Sunshine and Soca: A History of the Caribbean

3 units

This course examines major themes in the history of the Caribbean from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. The first half of the course will focus on the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, exploring issues such as indigenous societies, European encounter and conquest, plantation slavery, the resistance of enslaved Africans and emancipation. The remainder of the course focuses on aspects of the cultural, economic, political and social experiences of Caribbean peoples during the twentieth century. Major areas of inquiry include the labor rebellions of the 1930s, decolonization, diasporic alliances, Black Power, identity construction and the politics of tourism. While the English-speaking Caribbean constitutes the main focus, references will be made to other areas such as Cuba and Haiti. Additionally, the Caribbean will be considered in a multilayered way with a view to investigating the local (actors within national boundaries), the regional (historical events that have rendered the region a unit of analysis) and the global (larger globalizing forces such as capitalism, colonialism, migration and slavery that have made the Caribbean central to world history).