2025 Executive Council Elections

Patricia Saunders

PATRICIA J. SAUNDERS is Professor of English and Hemispheric Caribbean Studies and Director of Graduate Studies in English at the University of Miami, Coral Gables.  She is the Editor of Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal, author of Alien-Nation and Repatriation: Translating Identity in Anglophone Caribbean Literature (Lexington, 2007), and co-editor of Music. Memory. Resistance: Calypso and the Caribbean Literary Imagination (Ian Randle Press, 2007).

Her second book, Buyers Beware: Epistemologies of Consumption in Caribbean Popular Culture was published in the Critical Caribbean Studies Series with Rutgers University Press in 2022. This critical study examines a range of contemporary Caribbean popular cultural modes of expression to argue that the bonds between consumption and citizenship in the region are stronger now more than ever despite higher rates of unemployment and socioeconomic inequity. Her work has also appeared in journals such as: Small Axe, Transforming Anthropology, The Journal of West Indian Literature, Plantation Society in the Americas, Anthurium, Hyperallergic, and Feminist Studies. 

Andrew B. Campbell

Dr. Andrew B. Campbell (DR. ABC) is a graduate of the University of Toronto, with a PhD. in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Diversity. He is presently an Assistant Professor in the Master of Teaching (MT) program, in the Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning (CTL). He is an Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) and has taught at all levels of the education system for the last 27 years, in Jamaica, Bahamas, and Canada.

His research and teaching focus on issues of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Educational leadership, Black LGBTQ Issues, and Teacher Performance Evaluation.

Dr. Campbell has been a member of the CSA since 2020. He also has experience being on similar executive boards of the Caribbean African Studies in Education (CASE) SIG of AERA and the Queer Studies in Education (QSEC) SIG of CSSE.

Rita Keresztesi

Rita Keresztesi is Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, specializing in contemporary multi-ethnic American, African American and Afro-Caribbean literary and cultural studies, African cinema, and postcolonial/decolonial studies.

I have been member of CSA since 2006 and have made the organization my professional home with colleagues I call close friends. I have seen CSA change and grow over the years, with an understanding of its past and present. I am eager to support CSA in any way I can to see it thrive into the future. My first monograph, Strangers at Home: American Ethnic Modernism between the World Wars (University of Nebraska Press, 2005), discusses literary modernism from the perspectives of early 20^th-century immigrant, Native American, and African American writers. I co-edited the book (with MaryEllen Higgins and Dayna Oscherwitz) The Western in the Global South (Routledge, 2015), which investigates the Western film genre’s impact, migrations, and reconfigurations in the Global South. My second monograph, Literary Black Power in the Caribbean: Fiction, Music and Film (Routledge, 2020), focuses on how writers and musicians responded to the political message and agendas of Black Power activism in the Caribbean region. I have published articles and book chapters on the writings of Earl Lovelace, Sylvia Wynter, Zora Neale Hurston, George Schuyler, Boubacar Boris Diop, and Manthia Diawara; and the films of Perry Henzell, Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Kenneth Gyang, Didier Awadi, Med Hondo, and Mati Diop. I am currently completing a book manuscript entitled “Screen Griots: African Cinema’s Alternative Archives.” I was a Fulbright U.S. Scholar at l’Université Ouaga 1 Professeur Ki-Zerbo in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 2010-2011.

Angelique V. Nixon

Dr. Angelique V. Nixon is a Black Queer writer, artist, scholar, and activist. Born and raised in the Bahamas, she has been living and working in Trinidad and Tobago for over a decade. She is a social justice educator and community worker with over 20 years of experience and leadership in community-based organisations and academic institutions. Her research and creative works are available widely; she is author of two books – the poetry and art chapbook titled Saltwater Healing and the scholarly award-winning book titled Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture. Angelique is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. Her research and teaching areas include Caribbean and postcolonial studies, African diaspora literatures, gender and sexuality studies, Caribbean and Black feminisms, tourism and diaspora studies, and transnational migrations. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Florida in 2008, where she specialised in postcolonial and gender studies. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Africana Studies at New York University in 2009 and has held academic posts at University of Connecticut (2009-2011) and SusquehannaUniversity (2011-2014). She joined The UWI IGDS in 2014 as a Fulbright scholar and in 2015 as a lecturer, where she is now a tenured senior faculty member and coordinator of graduate studies. Her current research investigates race, sexuality, migration, and climate crisis at the crossroads of Caribbean freedom, social movements, and decolonial poetics.

For over 20 years, Angelique has been worked in social justice movements and organised through civil society and community organisations regionally and internationally. Angelique is active in Caribbean movements for social and climate justice and has developed several community-based projects to facilitate social change, notably the healing collective Ayiti Resurrect, which organised programmes in Leogane, Haiti (2010-2017) through annual delegations focused on arts, environmental sustainability, and women’s empowerment. Since 2009, Angelique has been co-director of the Caribbean IRN (digital resource network on diverse genders and sexualities), which published two multi-media collections and organised digital archives/spaces to support Caribbean LGBTQI+ visibility and knowledge. Further since 2016, she has served as a working director of the feminist LGBTQI civil society (non-profit) organisation CAISO: Sex and Gender Justice in Trinidad and Tobago, where she is chair of the Board and spearheads resource mobilisation, community engagement, and operations, with oversight of various projects and programmes. Angelique is fiercely committed to intersectional queer feminist praxis, decolonial politics, environmental justice, and Black liberation striving to disrupt silences, challenge oppressive systems, and create spaces for resistance and empowerment.

Janelle Rodriques

Janelle Rodriques, PhD is an associate professor in the English department at the University of Washington, Seattle. She specialises in anglocreole Caribbean literature of the long twentieth century, particularly expressions of spirituality/religion, and what she sees as the literature’s ‘quarrel with humanity’ – dissatisfaction with Caribbean people’s various exclusions from the category of ‘human.’  She is the author of Narratives of Obeah in West Indian Literature: Moving through the Margins (Routledge, 2019) and has contributed to the Routledge Handbook of Caribbean Studies (2025) and Cambridge University Press’ Caribbean Literature in Transition, Vol. 1: 1800s-1920s (2021). She is also published in Cultural Dynamics, Caribbean Quarterly and the Journal of West Indian Literature. 

Dr Rodriques has served as vice chair of the Society for Caribbean Studies (UK) and has been a member of that scholarly community for over a decade. She is currently working on a collaborative piece, ‘Caribbean Inheritances and Informal Archive Making: Intergenerational Intimacy as Method,’ as well as her second monograph, Waiting, Watching, Warning: Caribbean Literature’s Quarrel with Humanity.

Raona Williams

Dr. Raona Williams is a distinguished, award-winning academic consultant in international education and clinical health, adjunct lecturer and a senior specialist adept at working within both governmental and academic spheres. Additionally, as an interdisciplinary researcher and academic journal editor, she focuses on exploring and publishing peer reviewed research on future-oriented advancements in educational assessment, Technical and Vocational Education (TVET), virtual communities of practice for clinical education advancements, and 21st-century linguistic affordances using the transformative potentials of artificial intelligence in to foster excellence and equity, alongside cultivating forward-thinking entrepreneurship and creativity.

Driven by a deep commitment to her Caribbean heritage, she passionately champions the vibrant beauty, profound scholarly wisdom, and dynamic creative talent originating from the island nations and their expansive diaspora of academics and entrepreneurial professionals through her impactful written contributions, professional activities and consultancy engagements. With a career spanning three decades across diverse international landscapes and specialized domains, her insightful perspective is enriched by extensive expertise amassed in healthcare education, economic entrepreneurism, TVET professional developments and digital assessment methodologies. As a visionary leader in her field, she is dedicated to driving transformative data driven advancements within international education and healthcare sectors and environs.

Semone Armorgan

Semone Armorgan is an independent Social and Economic Researcher. Throughout her career, she continuously strives to positively contribute to business results, utilizing tools such as effective organisation and prioritisation when achieving key organisational projects.

A student at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, at the undergraduate level, her foundations in Economics nurtured her interest in the areas of Social Economics, Urban Economics and Econometrics. Her fondness for data and its relation to societal outcomes were applied through the accounting activities of small businesses as well as developing infrastructural monitoring and evaluation techniques at a nationally during the formative stages of her career.

As a graduate student pursuing an MSc. Development Statistics, her specialization in survey design and analysis has enhanced her critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Her resilience and results orientation abilities serve to support her research interests and continued efforts in aspects of Sustainable Development for Trinidad & Tobago, and the Caribbean.

To date, some of her contributions include, research attributed to the development of Trinidad and Tobago’s Comprehensive Wealth Index, more specifically the Natural Capital Index. In addition, she has processed and analysed data, reporting on Migration and Climate Displacement for Trinidad and Tobago. She was also a recent Queen Elizabeth Scholar (2024) at Mc Gill University and is a current affiliate of the McGill Geography Laboratory, where she continues to pursue research on Energy Poverty within the Caribbean region.

Phillip Clarke

Phillip Clarke has a BSc in Economics (Hons) and is currently completing a Master of Arts Degree in Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona where he received the prize for the best performing student in his cohort. He is the current Post Graduate Representative, and an Adjunct Lecturer and Tutor, within the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies.

He is currently employed as the Director, Policy and Research, Entertainment and Culture Division, Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport. He has delivered Guest Lecturers on several topics relating to Entrepreneurship, Entertainment and Culture at several academic institutions and presented on various aspects of Caribbean Culture at several conferences locally and abroad.

He currently manages Reggae Icon Ken Boothe and is also one of the Executive Producers of the Ken Boothe Autobiography: My Iconic Musical Journey. He has served as a board member for the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (2017-2020) and the Agricultural Credit Board (2008-2018). An experienced cultural ambassador, he has organized and led many musical tours from Jamaica to Europe, Japan, North and South America and throughout the Caribbean.

He is an active member of several Professional Development Organisations including the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), the Society for Caribbean Studies, the Association of Graduate Researchers in Education (AGRE), Mixed Methods International Research Association (MMIRA-CC) and the Caribbean Sociological Association (CASA).

He currently serves as the General Secretary of the Jamaica Federation of Musicians and Affiliates Union (JFMAU), the lobby group for the Music Industry in Jamaica. He is also the President Designate of the Kiwanis Club of Downtown Kingston, Secretary of the UWI Alumni Association (Jamaica Chapter), First Vice President Meadowbrook High School Alumni Association, a Board Member of the St. Andrew Parish Church Foundation and was recently appointed a member of the Board of the National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (NCTVET), under the Ministry of Education, Skills, Youth and Information.