“Carnival! Reggae! Piña Coladas! Steel Bands! Pirates! Buried Treasure! Beaches and Boats!
What is the REAL Caribbean?”
Discover the answer as we read short stories and poems representing the various Caribbean islands. Our virtual voyage of discovery will visit vibrant cultural traditions such as carnival, masquerade, story-telling, music, and dance, to explore how European and African cultures melded with indigenous cultures to create a variety of Creole identities.
These identities were constantly changing as Europe fought its wars by proxy on the Caribbean seas. Much like pirate ‘booty’, West Indian islands were bought and sold at the whims of monarchs, or traded as the spoils of war. The stories and cultural traditions of contemporary Caribbean people derive from these conflicted histories and reflect the many strategies used by early West Indians to resist European control. Students in this course will design unique multimodal/multimedia research projects that explore the history and origins of contemporary Caribbean cultures.
Voyages of the Caribbean 