The 2018 Caribbean Studies Forum will be hosted by the central campus of the University of Belize in Belmopan, Belize, from March 4 to 11, 2017, in a unique institutional collaboration between East Carolina University and the University of Belize. The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2017.

Description/Guidelines: Among the international forum’s objectives are expanding awareness of Caribbean cultures, providing a platform for interdisciplinary Caribbean Studies research projects, connecting a diverse body of academics (North-South and South-South), and promoting the field of interdisciplinary Caribbean Studies in general. The theme of this international 2018 Caribbean Studies Forum is “Cultural Syncretism in the Caribbean.” We hope to encourage enthusiastic scholarly reflection on what Antonio Benítez-Rojo in The Repeating Island famously describes as the Caribbean’s “sociocultural fluidity,” “ethnological and linguistic clamor,” “historiographic turbulence,” its creolisation, supersyncretism, and heterogeneity.

The conference takes a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach to the field and is open to institutionally-affiliated academics, independent researchers, research students, and the learned public. We welcome abstracts for presentations of relevance to Caribbean Studies in general and Caribbean cultural syncretism more specifically. Scholarship that inhabits interstitial spaces, or that might not be easily accommodated under more conventional disciplinary categories is especially welcome. Approaches uniting fields such as anthropology, the arts, economics, education, folk culture, geography, history, languages— including Creoles and Pidgins—linguistics, literature, medicine, music, politics, psychology, religion, and sociology are encouraged. As an interdisciplinary conference of Caribbean Studies, paper proposals can be wide-ranging.

Thematic suggestions for proposals (papers and panels) include—but are not limited to—the following: · Globalisation, Syncretism, and the Urban Caribbean · Community in/security and Caribbean Art · Imagining Ecological Vulnerability and Resilience in the Caribbean · Transcultural Literary Production · Archives Studies and Caribbean Culture · The Hybrid Muse · Caribbean “Supersyncretism” · The Politics of Indigeneity in the Caribbean · Creole Lingua Francas in Multicultural Caribbean Societies · Gender in Caribbean Folkloric Literature · Caribbean National Cultures and Natural Resource Management · Exotic Species Invasion in the Caribbean · Postcolonial Caribbean Culture · Caribbean Postmodernisms · Education and Caribbean Multiculturality · New Theories of Caribbean Cultural Syncretism · Cultural Syncretism in Caribbean Literature. We welcome proposals for Papers, Panels, and Workshops.

Submission Guidelines: Papers should be twenty minutes; Panels with up to four papers on a related topic may be proposed together; Workshop proposals geared to early-career academics and research students should address a themed topic, such as interdisciplinary research methods, or conducting research on or in Caribbean societies and states.  Abstracts for paper presentations (250 words), panels (200 words plus up to 150 words per paper), or workshops (250 words) should be emailed to cdeshield@ub.edu.bz by 15th December 2017.  Include a bio of up to 100 words for each presenter, inclusive of contact information and email address.  Especially for—but not limited to—undergraduate research students is a juried poster session offering an opportunity to engage with the learned public and communicate research findings and ideas. Participants will create standard-sized posters for display and present their findings in a slightly more informal setting. For poster sessions email an abstract (200 words) and short bio (up to 100 words) to cdeshield@ub.edu.bz.

All abstracts will be vetted by a bi-institutional review committee convened by Professor Seodial Frank H. Deena of East Carolina University. Decisions will be communicated by early January.

Contact email: cdeshield@ub.edu.bz (Belize); deenas@ecu.edu (East Carolina)