UMIA: A Hub for Caribbean Research

Months in the making, the University of Miami Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas introduced its new Hemispheric Caribbean Studies group in early 2017, an initiative aimed at creating a hub for Caribbean-focused research, scholarship, teaching, working groups and programming at UM.

The group’s initial members bring a broad diversity of research and scholarship, from social anthropology and history to literary and cultural studies; from transnational feminist studies to the politics of religion; and the roles of power, violence and marginalization in the Caribbean region.

Several of the group’s members gathered for a roundtable discussion about the initiative. Included in the video are: Kate Ramsey, associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences; Donette Francis, associate professor of english and director of the American Studies program; Lillian Manzor, associate professor and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences; Louis Herns Marcelin, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development (INURED) in Haiti; and Jafari Allen, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology.