cultural events and practices

Looking for somewhere new to travel to this summer while still learning something new about the region? Check out our recommendations for some of UNESCO's well-preserved World Heritage Sites in the Caribbean, where history, culture, nature, biodiversity, and legacy all come together. See the full list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites here. Be sure to let us know on social media if you plan on visiting any of these sites this summer!

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No island's carnival is exactly the same - take for instance, Grenada's Spicemas. Christell Simeon joins Strictly Facts to discuss the history and unique culture that Spicemas and Grenada offer the world each August. 
 
Christell Simeon is a Grenadian from the parish of St. David. Christell is a former educator of Caribbean history at the Presentation Brothers College (2005-2013). Christell is an SGU Alumni with a BSC in Business management with highest honors (Summa Cum Laude) from 2007 to 2011. Christell holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Regina, Canada (2013-2016). Christell is the owner of Spice Island DigiContent, a registered business in Grenada in the Creative and Cultural industry that also operates  Island Learning Grenada. Follow Island Learning Grenada on Instagram and Facebook. 

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More than sixty years ago, on September 1, 1957, over 1600 lives were lost and generations of families were impacted when a train derailed on its way to Kingston after leaving Montego Bay. Writer and leading handwriting expert Beverley East joins Strictly Facts to share the story of the Kendal Railway Tragedy, its impact on her own family, and how and what inspired her to write Reaper of Souls, a historical novel about what was then the second worst rail disaster in history at the time. 

Ms. Beverley East CAM, MGA, CFDE, has been a guest at several major literary festivals. Mainly the international Calabash Literary Festival in St Elizabeth Jamaica she read twice in 2008 and in 2014. Other literary festivals include Guadeloupe, Dominica, Nigeria, London and USA. She has sat on literary panels at the Library of Congress, World Bank and the House of Commons. She was a fellow for the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts (VCCA ) and Calabash literary festival. She created the Writer’s Lounge in 2007 where she has guided many authors on their journey to writing and publishing. Ms. East has participated in several anthologies and currently sits on the Board of the Hurston Wright Foundation.

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One of the most defining events of the last century in St. Lucia is the Great Fire of Castries Fire, which destroyed most of the island's capital on June 19, 1948.  In this episode, Milt Moise joins us to discuss the events of the fire, its impact in rebuilding St. Lucia's infrastructure, and its social and creative legacies as a the subject of one of the nation's most revered poems.

Milt Moise is a PhD candidate in the Department of English at the University of Florida. His current project examines the uses of absence in contemporary American bipolar fiction. His research interests include consciousness in literature, film and television, prestige TV aesthetics, self-referentiality, Caribbean and Postcolonial literature, and trauma narratives. He is the co-founder of the Television Reading Group at the University of Florida. Follow Milt on Twitter and Letterboxd. 

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The West Indian Day Parade is a decades long staple in New York culture. In this brief episode, listen to how the parade was founded as an ode to its post-pandemic return. 

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Caribbean carnival is one of the region's most famous annual celebrations comprised with lively music, dancing, and of course lavish costumes. Shauna Rigaud joins us this week to discuss carnival's history and the history of  Barbados' Crop Over festival.

Shauna holds a BA in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a master’s in both Gender/Cultural Studies and Communication Management from Simmons University, in Boston. She is a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies program at George Mason University. As a burgeoning scholar focused on the Caribbean, she hopes to highlight experiences and stories that give a more nuanced understand of the Caribbean, its history and postcolonial condition. Her research interests include a focus on the Caribbean Diaspora, Performance and Performativity, Black feminism and Caribbean feminism. She is also the co-founder of Mayhem246 a concierge company that specializes in providing entertainment experiences during Barbados’ Crop Over Festival.

Follow Shauna and Mayhem246 at @ne1nappy and @mayhem246.  

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Traditional or folk style and dress in the Caribbean has a long, intricate history that differs across the region. Speaking with textile researcher Lauren Baccus, we discuss folk style's early origins and its complicated evolution as a staple of cultural celebrations today. Let us know your thoughts via the Voicemail feature on our website!

Lauren Baccus is a textile artist and researcher whose work centers around the construct and deconstruction of Caribbean identity through costume, textile and dress. She is strongly influenced by masquerade, the region’s legacy of resistance through clothing, and the universality of play through dress. Her most recent project, Salt and Aloes, is an archive of Caribbean material culture over the past century. 

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Religion is an integral part of Caribbean history and culture, some of which were introduced as a result of colonization and enslavement and others that are syncretic religions, or made up of a combination of religions. In this episode, Dr. Aliyah Khan and I discuss a handful of Caribbean religions, the influence of music and culture, and her recent book, Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean, that charts the growth of Islam in the Caribbean from both the Afro- and Indo-Caribbean experience.

Dr. Aliyah Khan, a native of Guyana, is Associate Professor of English Language and Literature, and Afroamerican and African Studies, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.  Dr. Khan holds a Ph.D. in Literature and Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing--Fiction from Hunter College of the City University of New York. Her research areas are Caribbean literature and Islamic literature, with emphases on race, gender, and sexuality. Dr. Khan is the author of Far from Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press 2020), the first academic book on the history, literature, and music of Black and South Asian Muslims in the Caribbean. Her writing also appears in scholarly and popular venues including GLQ, Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, The Rumpus, Agents of Ishq, and Pree: Caribbean Writing. Dr. Khan is currently conducting research for a book on Caribbean hurricanes, the ship routes of the transatlantic slave trade, and their implications for contemporary migration within the Americas.

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Produced by Breadfruit Media