“Gender, Social Desire and ‘Genteel’ Caribbean Popular Culture”

Belinda Edmondson, Rutgers
(4 p.m. reception; 4:30 p.m. lecture)

This lecture explores “genteel” or upwardly mobile, English-speaking Caribbean popular culture from racial and gendered perspectives. In that the Caribbean is usually defined in schismatic terms-the authentic working class versus the inauthentic elites-this analysis seeks to undermine that model by tracing the evolution of middle class popular culture, defined in key ways by the social desires of Caribbean women.