Highly acclaimed author, scholar Carolyn Cooper will be visiting AV俱乐部 this week, delivering a lecture titled 鈥淢ek We Talk Bout De Bottom Of De Sea.鈥� The recently-retired professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the聽University of the West Indies will celebrate the submarine unity that connects Africans in the Diaspora with each other and their ancestral homelands, through discussion of submerged narratives in Caribbean literature and popular culture.
Dr. Cooper, of Jamaican descent, will be discussing stories of freedom and heroism within African culture in relation to pervasive Eurocentric accounts of 鈥渄iscovery鈥� and 鈥渃onversion鈥� of so-called 鈥渟avage peoples.鈥� She says these stories 鈥渋nspire us to act fearlessly in the present to fight against systems of oppression that continue to diminish the lives of so many Africans in the Diaspora.鈥�
Dr. Cooper is a descendant of Maroons in Jamaica whose communities across the Americas refused to submit to enslavement and heroically fought to maintain freedom. Her talk promises to be a thoughtful and compelling lecture that celebrates life and African unity through reflection and some humour in the face of a traumatic history.
鈥淧roverbial wisdom in Jamaica acknowledges the complexity of our response to trauma,鈥� she says. 鈥淭herapeutic laughter enables survival.鈥�
This free lecture is part of Dr. Afua Cooper鈥檚 Distinguished Lecture Series and is taking place at the MacMechan Auditorium in the AV俱乐部 Killam Library on Friday, October 28, at 7 p.m.
Celebrating African unity
Lecture from acclaimed author and scholar Carolyn Cooper
Craig Lang - October 27, 2016
Carolyn Cooper. (Provided photo)