The Florida International University’s 14th Annual FIU Eric Williams Lecture will celebrate Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th anniversaries of independence. It takes place at the Green Library, GL 100, on the Modesto Maidique campus (11200 Southwest 8th Street) in Miami, Florida, on Friday, October 26, 2012, at 6:30pm. Admission is free and open to the public:
This year, the African & African Diaspora Studies Program’s Distinguished Africana Scholars Lecture hosts two prominent speakers: Rachel Manley, daughter and granddaughter of two former Jamaican Prime Ministers; and Reginald Dumas, a veteran of Trinidad and Tobago’s Foreign Service and former U.N. Special Adviser on Haiti.
“50 Years After Independence: A Manley Perspective,” and “50 Years After Independence, Is Eric Williams Still Relevant?” promise to address critical issues pertaining to the last half-century of development – its successes and failures – in both countries.
As a Caribbean literary personality and winner of Jamaica’s Centennial Medal for Poetry, Ms. Manley teaches literary non-fiction and memoir in the MFA program at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is a frequent contributor to literary anthologies and writes book reviews for leading newspapers in North America and Britain. She is a Mary Ingram Bunting Fellow of Radcliffe University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Rockefeller, Bellagio Fellow.
Appointed ambassador at the age of 38, Mr. Dumas has served his country in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America. In 1988, he retired as Ambassador to Washington and Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States (OAS), and was appointed Permanent Secretary (Chief of Staff) to the Prime Minister and Head of the country’s Public Service. He has also represented the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in various fora.
Established in 1999, the Lecture honors the distinguished Caribbean statesman Eric E. Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and Head of Government for a quarter of a century until his death in 1981. He led the country to Independence from Britain in 1962 and onto Republicanism in 1976. A consummate academic and historian, and author of several books, Dr. Williams is best known for his groundbreaking work, the 68-year-old Capitalism and Slavery [. . .]
[. . .] Books by and about Eric Williams, Rachel Manley and Reginald Dumas will be available for purchase and signing at the Lecture.
For more information, please contact 305-348-6860/271-7246 or africana@fiu.edu
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