Bates College
Caribbean Societies
Anthropology 250
Winter 2002

Charles V. Carnegie
157 & 217 Pettengill Hall
e-mail:  ccarnegi / phone: 6079

To study the Caribbean is also to undertake a journey into learning about ourselves in the so-called developed world. The modern Caribbean was the first colonial outpost of imperial Europe. Caribbean plantation societies – developed with the expertise and labor of coerced African and Asian workers – helped lay the foundation for European and North American prosperity. Large numbers of Caribbean immigrants and travelers have lived, worked, and visited in Europe and North America from colonial times to the present. They have significantly influenced modes of thought, politics, music, food and other aspects of metropolitan life. One abiding and puzzling paradox, however, is that these contributions are often ignored or displaced in the imagination of the west.

The central goals and objectives of this course are as follows:

1. To expose students through a variety of media and academic disciplines (film, fiction, music, life-history, ethnography, geography etc.) to the rich diversity of Caribbean cultures. The course will allow you to become more familiar with the geography of the region, the main historical currents of Caribbean development, and some of the analytical frameworks that have been used to understand its social and cultural life.

2. To explore, in a preliminary way, the role the Caribbean played in the development of modern capitalism, as well as the region’s wider and continuing impact on culture and consciousness in the United States.

3. We are also concerned, however, with just why our own interdependence on the Caribbean is so often ignored. For this reason, we will return again and again in the course to questions of representation and the role of representation in shaping how we think. How have our ideas about the Caribbean been formed, how do we imagine this region and its peoples? What images and rhetorical devices are used to create these ideas? What are the consequences of these representations, conceptions, and misconceptions?

4. At the same time, the course seeks to provide a framework within which to better understand on its own terms, the diversity, and the cultural and social distinctiveness of this region of transplanted peoples.

Our aim, then, is to address the larger questions: How has the Caribbean been conceived of by North Americans and Europeans and how have its peoples thought about themselves?

Note that there are four evening meetings scheduled for the class to view and discuss films. Attendance at these evening classes is required. In addition, you may be expected to attend lectures and other events on campus as part of your work for this course. Readings may be added and other adjustments made to the syllabus as the need arises.

I will grade you on class participation (30%), two 3 -5 page critical essays (30%), and a take-home final exam (40%).

Class Participation: Regular attendance and engaged participation will be rewarded. Grades will be lowered for more than two unexcused absences. Oral presentations and occasional quizzes will also count towards your class participation.

Assigned readings should be completed for class on the day they are listed on the syllabus. Oftentimes I will distribute questions on the readings in advance to help you get at the central issues in the text and provide a framework for our class discussions. You are expected to take notes on the readings and write brief answers on the question sheets which I will collect periodically to see how carefully you are doing the readings and engaging with the issues they raise.

Exam: The take-home final exam will be due on April 9.

Critical Essays: A few students will be slated to write essays each week. Papers are due a week after the questions are assigned.

Books Available for Purchase:

Coursepack (cp) containing most of the shorter required readings.
Paul Farmer, AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame.
Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place.
Richard Price, The Convict and the Colonel.
Bonham Richardson, The Caribbean in the Wider World, 1492 - 1992.

Required readings will also be on reserve in Ladd Library. It is important that you read and re- read these assigned texts carefully, take notes, and write down the questions they generate for you. You should read ahead by starting on the longer of the assigned books (Farmer and Price) from early in the semester so as to be able to complete and have a chance to go over them by the time they come up on the syllabus.

For general interest, I strongly encourage you, to seek out additional print sources and to make use of the Internet. From the Ladd Library home page there are links to a wide range of relevant electronic sites and I urge you to explore them. The reference librarians are always willing to help you get started finding both print and electronic sources.

1. This site offers links to a variety of other scholarly sources on the Caribbean and is a useful place to begin your internet searches:

2. This site gives background information and public discussion on the film, Life and Debt, (to be screened March 27) about the impact of International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies on Jamaica. The film maker, Stephanie Black, also made H2 Worker which will be screened February 14.