Cfp: "Remembering the Future: the Legacies of Radical Politics in the Caribbean," University of Pittsburgh, April 3-4, 2009.

This colloquium takes 2009, the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the 30th anniversary of the Grenadian and Nicaraguan revolutions, as an occasion to investigate and assess the complex legacies of revolutionary politics in the Caribbean region at large, and the global south more generally. David Scott has asked “how do we need to modify or translate the great modern theorists of revolution to speak to the considerably changed political landscape we inhabit today?” To this, we add: What do struggles currently underway in the Caribbean share with these longer revolutionary traditions, and how do they depart from them? To what extent have these very different revolutions with very different outcomes shaped the ground of subsequent movements in the region? What models of collectivity, what forms of political organization and alliance, emerge in different periods in the Caribbean, and what are their implications? What does “Cuba” mean in the popular memory or imagination of Grenada? What does “Grenada” evoke in Cuban popular and official memory? What links have been made or are possible between youth movements in, say, Cuba and Guyana or Jamaica? What forms of internationalism, what regional links and alliances, are now being forged, not only at the state level, but also at the grassroots level? What is the significance of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela for the Caribbean? Participants are invited to think of their revolutionary histories in relational and regional terms rather than in an isolated national context. Given the historical authoritarianism of several revolutionary projects, how can we more supply theorize practices of dissent within the Left, whether it be insurrectionary or institutionalized? What productive relationships can be developed between grassroots/mass mobilizations and the state? What has been the role of the arts and cultural politics in contributing to a vital Left? (Such questions and answers will of course be specified differently in revolutionary, post-revolutionary, and anti-revolutionary states.) In all cases, we seek accounts that are historically grounded in particular regional struggles and contribute to the regional revitalization of egalitarian social movements. Tributes, critiques, comparisons, and redirections of the Cuban and Grenadian revolutions are all welcome in the spirit of contributing to democratic Left projects. Above all, we seek papers that engage with current practices and futures of radical politics in the Caribbean. For further information, visit the Conference homepage here: http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/clas/rememberingthefuture/concept.html.