CSA 2016 Program Chairs Report

The 41st Annual CSA Conference, 5-11 June 2016, will convene in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for the first time: a long overdue location for the association. We are eagerly looking toward to an exciting conference as we expect an enthusiastic response from Caribbeanists from the region and elsewhere. We also expect strong participation from Haitian intellectuals, artists, teachers, scholars, professionals, and activists, among others, inside the country.

This conference will establish a cross-disciplinary and translingual encounter and reinforce the intellectual integration of the non-English-speaking Caribbean within the English-speaking Caribbean and CARICOM. Also, the conference will be an occasion to have much needed  dialogue about the vital contributions of Haiti to the region particularly in terms of the arts, resistance, and knowledge production. The theme of the 2016 conference – Caribbean Global Movements: People, Ideas, Culture, Arts and Economic Sustainability – offers a focus on the various movements that have given rise to the region and our place globally, while also
repositioning questions of knowledge and sustainability. And it offers us a space to think through the centrality of Haiti in these movements and how we can envision and plan future movements. We also hope that the conference will give us the opportunity to showcase the wealth and diversity of independent Haitian scholarship, which has contributed to unconventional and needed responses to issues facing the country.

We invite our members to think about and plan for interdisciplinary and multilingual panels in order to foster an inter-Caribbean dialogue beyond geographical borders and linguistic barriers. The Call for Submissions will be ready for circulation very soon. Please note that proposals will be due much earlier than in previous years – 15th October 2015 – as part of our work with CSA executive council to make improvements to the program structure, as well as the procedures for submission, membership, and registration.

We ask CSA members for your patience and support as we work on changes, especially as we prepare for the conference in Haiti. We are open to your ideas and welcome your participation.

For all program-related inquires or suggestions, please contact us directly at program.chair@caribbeanstudiesassociation.org.

Marie-Jose Nzengou-Tayo & Angelique V. Nixon