Caribbean and African Literature and Culture

Scholars working at the intersection of Caribbean and African religious and literary traditions examine how communities shaped by colonialism, enslavement, and forced migration have constructed meaning, identity, and resistance through spiritual practices, oral culture, and written expression. Haitian Vodou, for instance, is studied not as folklore but as a coherent theological and social system that survived centuries of suppression precisely because it encoded collective memory and African diasporic continuity. Postcolonial criticism in this space asks how literature written in French, Creole, or English navigates the language of former colonizers while articulating experiences those languages were designed to erase. Active debates center on how diaspora communities in North America and Europe sustain or transform these traditions, and on whose authority gets to define authenticity in religious and cultural practices that were historically criminalized.

Works

110,064

Total citations

69,882

Keywords

HaitiCaribbeanColonialismRaceDiasporaVodou