Constructing Vernacular Culture in the Trans-Caribbean

Finding trans-Caribbean-ness to be a new type of emergent nationalism, Henke (political science, Metropolitan College of New York, US) and Magister (a researcher at the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, Germany) present 14 papers examining the construction of vernacular culture--"cultural expressions that are rooted within the sphere of the indigenous and popular"--across the trans-Caribbean. Topics addressed include Afro-Surinamese and Indo-Surinamese as transnational identities in the Netherlands, the diversity of Caribbean culture in New York City, historical and diasporic consciousness and family reunion rituals of Afro-Caribbean transnational families, Pentecostal identity and the popular music of Jamaica and Haiti, Olive Senior's use of Caribbean orality in her short stories, the role of transnational hip hop in Trinidadian carnival, national and transnational identity in the work of Bruce St. John, the Amerindian transnational experience in Pauline Melville's The Ventriloquist's Tale, and third wave feminism in the Caribbean. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Holger W. Henke is assistant professor of political science at Metropolitan College of New York and editor of Crossing Over: Comparing Recent Migration in the United States and Europe (Lexington 2005). Karl-Heinz Magister is a researcher at the Center for Literary Studies in Berlin.