SaundersASSISTANT PROFESSOR in English at the University of Miami, Patricia Joan Saunders, will launch her book Alien-Nation and Repatriation: Translating Identity in Anglo-phone Caribbean Literature on Thursday, October 23, at the multi-functional room of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona main library. The launch is hosted by West Indian Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (WIACLALS) and the Department of Literatures in English, and will begin at 6:30 p.m.
Saunders has written extensively on the intersections of Caribbean popular culture and literature. Her research focuses on issues of gender, sexuality and Caribbean national identity. She has published several articles in academic journals such as Small Axe, Bucknell Review and Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal.
Born in Belmont, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Saunders earned her bachelors degree at the University of Maryland in plant and soil science. Her decision to turn her attention to literature came after completing a course on Caribbean literature and attending the Caribbean Women Writers Conference in Trinidad. Saunders speaks of the change of disciplines as not as radical as many would think. She observes: It is much like continuing a conversation that had been interrupted abruptly between very dear friends. After time has elapsed they work their way back to the same point and the conversation continues still to this day.
academic career
Her academic career continued at the University of Pittsburg where she earned both her masters degree (1992) and then her doctorate in English literature and cultural studies (1999).
Saunders scholarly book makes a valuable contribution to discussions on Anglophone Caribbean literature and popular culture by examining the extent to which gender, migration and female sex-uality frame the earliest representations of Caribbean identity.
Saunders argues that the idea of return for Caribbean women writers is not focused on reclaiming the nation-state, but rather a closer examination of Caribbean identity aimed at engaging the selves that have been disciplined into silence. Her text considers the works of George Lamming, Paule Marshall, Erna Brodber and Elizabeth Nunez, among others. Alien-Nation is published by Lexington Books.
keynote speaker
Associate professor of English at Howard University, Curdella Forbes, will be the keynote speaker. Forbes, herself a scholar of Caribbean literature, is the author of another important critical text, From Nation to Diaspora: Samuel Selvon, George Lamming and Cultural Performance of Gender (2005). Both professors are members of the co-host organisation WIACLALS, the regional body of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies.
The launch is a major event for the association whose membership includes scholars and graduate students from the Caribbean, North America and the United Kingdom. The public is invited to attend.
