Natalie Belisle and Marcela Guerrero invite you to submit abstracts for a LASA 2014 panel entitled “Aesthetics of the Abyss: Memory and Visual Culture in the Postcolonial Caribbean.” The deadline for submissions is August 21, 2013.

Description: In Poetics of Relation, Édouard Glissant describes the “memory of the abyss” as a productive metaphor for both death and life, loss, and the possibility of newness in the wake of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. From the “abyss” a shared knowledge of the Caribbean (Relation) emerged. Moreover, this “memory of the abyss” becomes the creative matrix for the genesis of the Caribbean.

Parting from this framework, we seek to organize an interdisciplinary panel of papers for LASA 2014 that explores how visual culture from the postcolonial Caribbean is mediated by a memory of the abyss (in its negative or affirmative sense).

Please send an abstract, of no more than 250 words, that describes the scope of your paper along with a brief author bio by August 21. Please include your institutional affiliation, email, and phone number.

Marcela Guerrero, Department of Art History, University of Wisconsin, Madison: mcguerrero@wisc.edu

Natalie Belisle, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Wisconsin, Madison: belisle@wisc.edu