Caribbean Studies is an emerging field. As such, many topics within this discipline have yet to be explored and developed. This collection of essays is one of the forerunners dedicated to a comprehensive study of the literature, language, and culture of the Caribbean. By exploring the works of such prominent literary scholars as Samuel Selvon and Lorna Goodison as well as the myriad of issues pertaining to the Caribbean experience, this volume provides an engaging overview of literary, language, and cultural analysis. Because of this wide range of essays, this text meets a need to examine the Caribbean in its complexity, which is rarely addressed.

One of the most salient issues in Caribbean studies is the region's linguistic and cultural fragmentation as a result of European colonization. More than five centuries later, the islands and American countries whose shores touch the Caribbean Sea still echo such maladies. The title of this book is a call towards unity, a unity that, in the words of Barbadian poet, historian and critic Kamau Brathwaite, "is submarine." In the past, nations' borders were established based on the distance a cannon ball was able to cover when fired from land out to sea. It is time to go beyond the cannon ball distances out into uncharted territories, beyond the canon, and, thus, beyond the cannon's range.This book features a selection of essays presented at the fifth annual Caribbean Without Borders conference at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. It critically delves into the fields of linguistics, history, literature, philosophy, politics, feminism, cultural studies, music, film, and art, among many others, as a means to re-visit, re-view, re-envision, re-read, re-interpret, and thus re-create a Caribbean aesthetics that looks to submarine unity, a unity that defies spatial, temporal, and social borders. The book conveys the limitless nature of the Caribbean and its rich culture, making it an appealing transdisciplinary source for a multidisciplinary academic audience.

"... the publication of papers presented at the Fifth Caribbean Without Borders graduate student conference on the languages, literatures and cultures of the region"--Editors' note.

A sweeping exploration of revolutionary ideas that traveled the Atlantic in the late eighteenth century Nation-based histories cannot do justice to the rowdy, radical interchange of ideas around the Atlantic world during the tumultuous years from 1776 to 1804. National borders were powerless to restrict the flow of enticing new visions of human rights and universal freedom. This expansive history explores how the revolutionary ideas that spurred the American and French revolutions reverberated far and wide, connecting European, North American, African, and Caribbean peoples more closely than ever before. Historian Janet Polasky focuses on the eighteenth-century travelers who spread new notions of liberty and equality. It was an age of itinerant revolutionaries, she shows, who ignored borders and found allies with whom to imagine a borderless world. As paths crossed, ideas entangled. The author investigates these ideas and how they were disseminated long before the days of instant communications and social media or even an international postal system. Polasky analyzes the paper records--books, broadsides, journals, newspapers, novels, letters, and more--to follow the far-reaching trails of revolutionary zeal. What emerges clearly from rich historic records is that the dream of liberty among America's founders was part of a much larger picture. It was a dream embraced throughout the far-flung regions of the Atlantic world.

Moving Beyond Borders is the first book-length history of Black health care workers in Canada, delving into the experiences of thirty-five postwar-era nurses who were born in Canada or who immigrated from the Caribbean either through Britain or directly to Canada. Karen Flynn examines the shaping of these women's stories from their childhoods through to their roles as professionals and community activists. Flynn interweaves oral histories with archival sources to show how these women's lives were shaped by their experiences of migration, professional training, and family life. Theoretical analyses from postcolonial, gender, and diasporic Black Studies serve to highlight the multiple subjectivities operating within these women's lives. By presenting a collective biography of identity formation, Moving Beyond Borders reveals the extraordinary complexity of Black women's history.

What? Quit our jobs, sell everything, and take the kids on a 4 year adventure through the Caribbean and South America? Are we crazy? You will laugh out loud as you read the inspiring true story of a family who abandoned their crazy, stress-filled days to live a life of adventure. Carla and Dan were living what was supposed to be the American dream-the big house, successful corporate careers, and two young, wonderful children. But it all came at a cost-the constant stress of the weekly morning race to work and school, the tired weekends, a family headed in different directions, the struggle to keep it all together as effortlessly as everyone else seemed to be doing, and the overwhelming fear that the struggle to live this life was costing them a life of happiness. They knew they had to make a dramatic change, so over the objections of family, friends, and co-workers, that's what they did-they made a big change. Though not proficient sailors, they sold their house and most of their possessions, bought a sailboat, and with their six-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son, left on a four-year adventure, sailing through the Caribbean and backpacking through South America. "Everything that defined who we were was gone. Now it was time to find out who we are." They sailed down the Caribbean, battling the fears of storms, pirates, and homeschooling. Surviving those things and more, the foursome were not only surprised to still be talking to each other, but were inspired by how strong they had become as a team. Encouraged and emboldened, they left their sailboat in Aruba and backpacked through South America where they: Fought off biting ants in the Amazon Reveled in the beauty of Machu Picchu Observed penguins in Chile Hiked to a glacier on top of a volcano in Ecuador Stood star-struck in the remoteness of the Atacama Desert Wanderlust still not satisfied, their expedition branched out to the US. The family crossed the country by train and RV, where they became schooled in the art of RV parking by German tourists and learned the dangers of mistaking a fellow camper for a potato chip eating bear. The best part of their odyssey was connecting with other cultures and reconnecting as a family, learning they will always be stronger when they are together. Whether you can sail a boat, ride a bus, take a train, or just cross the street, Carla and her family will inspire you to live a life without borders.

Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Literature and Culture is a collection of a dozen essays by Caribbean scholars living in the Caribbean and around the world. Each of the three sections of the book explores the Caribbean as a diasporic space through the lenses of literary and cultural systems. “Negotiating Borders: Women, Sexuality, and Identity” examines the creolized identities of Caribbean societies, gender roles of women, impact of sexual tourism, and censorship of Latino gays and lesbians. The essayists in this section note that much work still needs to be done in academia to give voice to repressed Caribbean populations. “Creating Spaces of Caribbean Artistic Expression: Multiple Representations” focuses on how music, identity, art, and language depict the diversity of the Caribbean experience. In this section, the essayists examine how the process of creation extends to new cultural expressions. “Deconstructing the Diaspora: Caribbean Writers as Political Activists” takes into account the tension between oppressor and oppressed, a pressing issue for many Caribbean authors, and focuses on the role of writers in reconstructing Caribbean culture, politics, and history. In pursuit of a more comprehensive West Indian view, this publication provides a novel perspective on Caribbean literary, cultural, and historical experience. The essays featured complement each other in their representation of the multiplicitous Caribbean region with all its claims and anxieties. They cover a wide range of writers and diverse cross-cultural encounters within the Caribbean region and reflect on issues such as Caribbean identity, migration, and artistic form of expression. This publication cuts across geographies, cultures, and disciplines, enriching Caribbean scholarship by recognizing the Caribbean’s tradition of resistance and courage.

2023 Honorable Mention, Isis Duarte Book Prize, Haiti/ Dominican Republic section (LASA) 2023 Winner, Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award, Caribbean Studies Association An innovative study of the artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean Debates over the undocumented migration of Latin Americans invariably focus on the southern US border, but most migrants never cross that arbitrary line. Instead, many travel, via water, among the Caribbean islands. The first study to examine literary and artistic representations of undocumented migration within the Hispanophone Caribbean, Crossing Waters relates a journey that remains silenced and largely unknown. Analyzing works by novelists, short-story writers, poets, and visual artists replete with references to drowning and echoes of the Middle Passage, Marisel Moreno shines a spotlight on the plight that these migrants face. In some cases, Puerto Rico takes on a new role as a stepping-stone to the continental United States and the society migrants will join there. Meanwhile the land border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the only terrestrial border in the Hispanophone Caribbean, emerges as a complex space within this cartography of borders. And while the Border Patrol occupies US headlines, the Coast Guard occupies the nightmares of refugees. An untold story filled with beauty, possibility, and sorrow, Crossing Waters encourages us to rethink the geography and experience of undocumented migration and the role that the Caribbean archipelago plays as a border zone.