"States of Freedom: Freedom of States," Duke University and University of the West Indies, Mona, June 17-18, 2010.

How are notions of freedom and governance practiced and contested within and across national spaces in the Caribbean postcolonial? This symposium explores questions of freedom and governance generated from the heart of creolization; a process that forged a uniquely global exploitation of discrete island territories for economic activity, regional influence, and military advantage by many of the major European metropoles. The continuities and discontinuities in this history form the inspiration for our consideration of discourses, cultural forms, geo-political alliances, models of states and citizenship, and forms of (un)freedoms that have emerged in the Caribbean. In this interdisciplinary symposium we will consider how states of freedom (and felt un-freedoms), have been, and are currently being imagined, performed and represented in politics, the visual and cultural arts, as well as in literature, and also examine the consequences of this for the creolization/kreyòlisation of places, power, people, ideas and knowledge. This symposium fosters an intellectual partnership and new networks of collaboration between Duke University and the University of the West Indies-Mona. It is co-sponsored by the Duke University Center for International Studies (DUCIS) and the Office of the Principal and Vice Chancellor at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and supported by the Deans of the Faculties of the Social Sciences and Humanities, the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies (SALISES), the Department of History, the Institute of Caribbean Studies as well as the Center for Caribbean Thought. The organizing committee includes: Duke University, Michaeline Crichlow (AAAS and Sociology), Deborah Jenson (Romance Studies); UWI-Mona, Patricia Northover (SALISES, Mona), Matthew Smith (Department of History& Archaeology), Sonjah Stanley-Niaah (Institute of Caribbean Studies). Keynote speakers include: Prof. J. Lorand Matory (Chair, African and African American Studies, Duke University), and Prof. Rupert C. Lewis, (Professor of Political Thought, Department of Government, University of the West Indies). For further information, please contact: patricia.northover@uwimona.edu.jm, pat.northover@yahoo.com; tel: 876 927 1020 or 876 927 1234. Proposed titles and abstracts should be submitted by email under the subject heading “States of Freedom proposal,” by March 5, 2010.