Book Talk with Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, "Caribbean Archipelagoes Comparative Insular and Colonial Studies"

The Center for the Humanities invites you to our 3rd Book Talk of the academic year with Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, who will present on her recent publication, Caribbean Archipelagoes: Comparative Insular and Colonial Studies in conversation with colleague Jorge Duany. Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel is Marta S. Weeks Chair in Latin American Studies and Professor, Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, University of Miami. Jorge Duany is Professor Emeritus, Department of Global & Sociocultural Studies; Former Director, Cuban Research Institute, Florida International University.

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Connecting the Caribbean with other island networks that have shared histories and legacies of empire

While the Caribbean is often studied by focusing on individual islands and their pasts, Caribbean Archipelagoes proposes a new way of understanding this vital part of the world by placing it in conversation with other island chains, emphasizing those in the Pacific that share similar colonial histories. Drawing on cultural productions and concepts by thinkers such as Audre Lorde, Édouard Glissant, Derek Walcott, Michelle Stephens, Godfrey Baldacchino, Elizabeth DeLoughrey, and Lanny Thompson, Yolanda Martínez San Miguel calls for a reexamination of the Caribbean as a colonial archipelago—a network of islands shaped by the shared challenges and strategies of empires.

Analyzing a variety of primary sources in the Caribbean and places such as Guåhan and Hawai‘i, including historical maps and travel diaries from early colonial explorers, calypso songs about Caribbean federations, and contemporary art and poetry, this book reveals how island networks have been imagined and managed by French, Spanish, and Anglo imperial powers from the fifteenth century to the present. By incorporating narratives of underrepresented perspectives, such as those of Chinese migrant and queer communities, and through innovative concepts of archipelagic thinking, the book provides a powerful new framework for understanding colonial and decolonial imaginaries in the Caribbean and beyond.

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Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel specializes in colonial, postcolonial Latin American, and Caribbean literature. She teaches courses on critical theory, comparative coloniality, gender and sexuality studies, and Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean studies. She has taught at Princeton University (1997-2000), Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (2000-2003; 2008-2017), and the University of Pennsylvania (2003-2008). She recently co-edited two volumes: (with Michelle Stephens) Contemporary Archipelagic Thinking: Towards New Comparative Methodologies and Disciplinary Formations (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) and (with Santa Arias), The Routledge Companion to Colonial Latin American and Caribbean Studies (Routledge 2021). She is currently working on her fifth book, “Archipiélagos de Ultramar: Comparative Insular and Colonial Studies,” which uses comparative archipelagic studies as a historical and theoretical framework to propose a research agenda for the study of cultural productions in the Caribbean and other colonial archipelagoes between 1498 and 2010. She is co-editor of the book series on Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University Press.

For additional information, please also see the program listing with Books & Books!