Crimes against Guadeloupe?:

The Tangled Poetics of Guadeloupean Music

Prof. Jerome Camal

UCLA

Since the late 1960s and the eruption of separatist movements in the French Antilles, music, politics, and identity have been closely enmeshed in Guadeloupe. Originally, nationalism inspired the emergence of musical styles and discourses that erected strict boundaries around the national cultural space. More recently, Antillean intellectuals such as Edouard Glissant have sought to define a post-nationalist space that responds to both the local nationalist orthodoxy and the neocolonialist pressures of the metropole while also allowing Antillean artists to integrate their national culture within transnational networks. Putting Glissant’s writings in dialogue with recent works by Guadeloupean musicians allows us to untangle the poetics of Guadeloupean music and better grasp the significance and limitations of Glissant’s vision.

Jerome Camal's research focuses on musics of the African diaspora, principally music of the Francophone Caribbean and jazz. His work explores theoretical approaches to cultural exchange and hybridity. His dissertation, entitled "From Gwoka Modènn to Jazz Ka: Music, Nationalism, and Creolization in Guadeloupe," investigates how gwoka—an African-derived drum music—has been deployed and transformed to express changing political ideologies and national identities. By articulating the tension between race and class solidarity as well as between national and diasporic consciousness, this research conceptualizes creolization as a post-nationalist strategy in Caribbean societies. Professor Camal is currently visiting assistant professor of musicology at UCLA where he teaches classes on rock and jazz history as well as a class highlighting the connections between dancehall, rap, and reggaeton. 

Thursday, October 6, 2011

4:00 PM

Room 1440, Schoenberg Music Building