This book’s main hypothesis is that Caribbean modernism was deeply entangled in processes of social and political transformation. In exploring and articulating an expanded approach to Caribbean modernism, we do not merely approach it as a universalizing spectrum of formal and stylistic options, but as aesthetically framed propositions to critically engage and reshape the modern world. The contributors assembled in this book take the discussion of Caribbean modernism beyond national, medium-based and linguistic traditions, seeing it not only as an aesthetic strategy, but as an expression of commitment to local and global development and progress. Critical Perspectives on Caribbean Modernism seeks to both expand the frameworks applied to Caribbean (and global) modernisms and make an important contribution to an under-researched area of Caribbean studies.
Carlos Garrido Castellano is Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University College Cork. He is the author of Beyond Representation in Contemporary Caribbean Art (2019), Art Activism for an Anticolonial Future (2021), Literary Fictions of the Contemporary Art System (2023) and Chorus: Sonic Politics of the Carnivalesque in Tragic Times (2026).
Therese Hadchity has a background in art history and cultural studies and is the author of The Making of a Caribbean Avantgarde. Postmodernism as post-nationalism. Based in Barbados, she has researched, written on and curated exhibitions of Caribbean art for three decades. She currently lectures at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.
Aaron Kamugisha is a Professor of Africana Studies at Smith College. He is the author of Beyond Coloniality: Citizenship and Freedom in the Caribbean Intellectual Tradition, and the editor of fifteen books and special issues of journals on Caribbean intellectual traditions.
This book will be read by advanced undergraduate and graduate students and professors in tertiary education in the fields of Caribbean studies, art/visuality studies, postcolonial studies, modernisms studies and Africana Studies. Librarians, museologists and artists will also find the work in the collection of interest and relevance.