The Grenada Revolution: Geographies of Memory
SHALINI PURI
(Dept. of English , University of Pittsburgh)
October 8, 6-8 pm
20 Cooper Square, 4th Floor
Thirty years since the Grenada Revolution took power, twenty six since the United States invaded, and not even a month since the last prisoners convicted of the murders of members of the revolutionary government were released, the Grenada Revolution continues to be a living, if repressed, memory, and an event with still unfolding regional consequences. The talk will explore the relationship between political memory and cultural geography, by studying various sites of memory: state memorials, grafitti, paintings and photographs, literature, and material traces of the Revolution. It will also dwell upon appropriate methodologies for such a project on memory. The talk is drawn from Shalini Puri’s forthcoming book Volcanic Memory: The Grenada Revolution and the Futures of Revolutionary Practice.
Shalini Puri is an Associate Professor of English at University of Pittsburgh. She works on postcolonial theory and cultural studies of the global south with an emphasis on the Caribbean. She is currently working on two books: one on the cultural memory of the Grenadian Revolution and its legacies for egalitarian politics in the region, and a second collaborative project to theorize the role of fieldwork in the humanities. Her award-winning book The Caribbean Postcolonial: Social Equality, Post-Nationalism, and Cultural Hybridity explores the relations amongst nationalisms, feminisms, and various theories and histories of cultural hybridity. She continues to be interested in researching the cultural practices, conflicts, and solidarities which have arisen out of the overlapping diasporas set in motion by slavery and indentureship.
Research and Publications: Puri's book The Caribbean Postcolonial: Social Equality, Post/Nationalism, and Cultural Hybridity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) won the 2005 Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis prize for the best book on the Caribbean in the foregoing three-year period. She has also edited an anthology entitled Marginal Migrations: The Circulation of Cultures within the Caribbean (Macmillan, 2003). Her work has appeared in Cultural Critique, Small Axe, Journal of Latin American Anthropology, ARIEL, and the anthologies Caribbean Romances: The Politics of Regional Representation (edited by Belinda Edmondson) and Matikor: The Politics of Identity for Indo-Caribbean Women (edited by Rosanne Kanhai).
