Dr Erna Brodber’s unusual prose, with its poetic form and spiritually redemptive content is a celebration of African diasporic folk cultures. Myths and untold narratives from her native Woodside, St Mary Parish in Jamaica are explored as the source of ancestral power, collective and communal healing. Her work centres on the development of Caribbean literary aesthetics through the consistent use of Jamaican patois and oral traditions, a conscientious methodology that deconstructs dominant Western imperialist forms.
As a Pan-Africanist she is committed to the collectivism and unity of Africans in the diaspora and their continuing struggles for psycho-social emancipation from slavery and colonialism. Writer in residence and former lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Dr Brodber is an author, community activist, cultural historian and sociologist. In her own words, she is best described as ‘an intellectual worker.’ Four of her acclaimed novels, Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994), The Rainmaker’s Mistake (2007) and collection of lectures The Continent of Black Consciousness (2007) were published by the UK’s foremost Black owned independent press New Beacon Books. A fifth novel, Nothing’s Mat (2014) was published by the University of the West Indies Press.
She has received numerous awards, including the Gold Musgrave medal three times (from the Institute of Jamaica for her work in literature; from the government of Jamaica for community work, from the government of the Netherlands for her work in literature and orature).
In this grounding with Dr Michelle Asantewa, Dr Brodber will share her personal story, her work as a community organiser and her life-long research and community project ‘Blackspace’ rooted in her beloved home village of Woodside.
This event is organised by Black History Walks in conjunction with the Sarah Parker Remond Centre at U.C.L.
About the speakers: Dr Erna Brodber
Erna Brodber graduated from the University College of the West Indies (UCWI) in 1963 with a BA in History, continuing to complete the MSc Sociology and the PhD in History from the University of the West Indies (UWI). Her work, over many decades, has followed two distinct, though intersecting courses. Her sociological research has focused on social history and biography, the study of inner-city communities and the respective roles of race, gender, culture and class in Caribbean society.
Among the memorable titles of her numerous articles and book chapters are: “A Study of Yards in the City of Kingston”; “Oral Sources and the Creation of the Social History of the Caribbean”; “Reengineering Blackspace”; “The Emergence of Reggae: a 1986 Review” and “Fiction in the Scientific Procedure”.The last mentioned article makes the intimate connection with her other passion, in that between her formal sociological interventions, Erna Brodber, through her novels, has emerged as one of the leading contemporary writers from the Commonwealth Caribbean. From Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home (1980), through Myal (1988), Louisiana (1994), The Rainmaker’s Mistake (2006) and The World is a High Hill (2012), Brodber has developed as a distinct voice with an acute appreciation of the social, cultural and oral spaces of Jamaica and other venues of the African Diaspora.
Erna Brodber is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Order of Distinction, Commander Class from Jamaica, the D.Litt. from the UWI Mona and the Musgrave Gold Medal for Literature and Orature from the Institute of Jamaica. She has taught internationally and held visiting positions across the USA and Europe and, most recently, was Writer in Residence in the Department of Literatures in English here at the UWI Mona. While at SALISES Dr Brodber will be working on a collection of essays, tentatively titled “African-American and African-Jamaican Relations, 1782-1944”
Dr Michelle Asantewa is the editor and publisher of In Search of Mami Wata, an anthology of narratives and images of African Water spirits. She is also course leader on Black History Walks 12-week course, African Women Resistance Leaders: Political and Spiritual.
This is an online event the link will be sent to the email you register with please check your JUNK mail when you register and on the day.
Look out for our new book ‘Black History Walks in London Volume 1’. This is part of Jacaranda Books revolutionary Twenty in 2020 initiative to publish 20 books by 20 Black British authors in 2020. An unprecedented feat. ‘Black History Walks in London Volume 1’ is the 20th of that series but was delayed to this year due to the Coronavirus
Other online events from www.blackhistorywalks.co.uk
- African Women Resistance Leaders: Political and Spiritual course Part 1
- 20 Banned Black films you need to see
- Black History Success Stories in London
- African Graphic Novels; the rise of Black superheroes
- The economic impact of African hair, local and global
- 19th century superheroine Sarah Parker Remond
- 1958 Notting Hill remembering the ‘riots’ and black resistance
- Black history bus tour
- Black history river cruise
- Earl Cameron season at BFI Southbank
- Black British Civil Rights and Darcus Howe day
- Secrets of Soho Black History Walk
- St Paul’s/Bank Black History Walk
About the Sarah Parker Remond Centre at UCL
The University College London Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation explores the impact of racism – scientific, metaphysical and cultural. Part of the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, they work closely with many partners on-site to provide a focal point for scholarship, teaching and public engagement activities that are addressed to various problems of racial inequality and hierarchy