FD11A: Caribbean Civilisation

Caribbean Civilisation (FD11A) is the foundation course offered by the faculty of Humanities and Education. Its aims are:

1. To develop an awareness of the processes of cultural development in Caribbean societies, highlighting the factors, the problematics and the creative outputs that have fed the emergence of Caribbean identities.

2. To develop a perception of the Caribbean as wider than island nations or linguistic blocks.

3. To stimulate students' interest in, and commitment to, Caribbean civilisation in the furtherance of their own self-definition.

DESCRIPTION

The guiding proposition of the course, Caribbean Civilisation, is that the Caribbean region has been the site and the Caribbean people the makers of both pre-modern/pre-Columbian and modern civilisation/s:

• The civilisation of Amerindians (encountered and largely destroyed by Europe ) manifested in their material and symbolic, expressive and institutional culture. Their material culture - the way they made their living - was agricultural, supplemented by marine and land hunting. They expressed and found meaning in complex states and other structures involving social hierarchies, elaborate ceremony and ritual, rich religious practice embracing a supreme being, multiple lesser deities, spirit entities some of which were known as Zemis. Their arts, crafts and technologies resulted in artefacts of ceramics, gold, stone, bone, wood, fabric. The genocide experienced by the first Caribbean peoples resulted from the unprecedented ruthlessness of militarily superior Europeans.
• Modern Caribbean Civilisation rests on the high-cultural foundation of the Amerindians, of Africa, of Europe and of Asia . Its driving force, however, has been the triumphant creativity of the African and Asian majority expressed in cultural, day-to-day and armed resistance over forces of dehumanisation. Its sites are maroonage, plots and rebellions (most grandly the Haitian Revolution), the creole languages, religion, music, story, riddle and so forth. Since the middle of the second half of the twentieth century, and building on the creativity of the mass of the Caribbean people, Caribbean scribal literature has constituted itself into a new and world-important dimension of Caribbean civilisation.

COURSE CONTENT

• Cultural Matrices/Foundations
• The Emergence of Caribbean Diasporan (African and Asian) Civilisation
• Caribbean Civilisation and the Quest for Human Dignity
• Ideas, Ideologies and Theologies
• Caribbean Expressions

RECOMMENDED READING

•  Journeying After Arrival vol. I & II

FURTHER INFORMATION

For past papers please visit the Library's online catalogue. Other useful information please visit:

http://www.mona.uwi.edu/humed/courses/fd11a/index.htm

ASSESSMENT

In-course Test 40%

Final Exam 60%