Partial view of the "Museo Sin Techo" or Museum without a Roof in San Juan, Puerto Rico (demolished) where, faced with the process of "Disneyfication" of the old walled city, local artist claimed a contestatorial space of anti-colonial affirmation.
For the past five hundred years the Caribbean archipelago has been one of the most active contact zones in the world. That broad and open space of exchange that straddles two oceans and both hemispheres, bringing together the peoples of four continents, is the site where the enterprise of European conquest and Christianization gave rise to the traditions of the counter-conquest and to a loose array of related alternative practices of space that go beyond the unitary, analogic and Euro-centric notions that have characterized hegemonic discourses in the North Atlantic world. At once suffering form and pointing beyond the devastating projects of mercantilism, colonialism and the Plantation, Caribbean space has quietly fostered the rise of informal initiatives that challenge the recalcitrant ways of empire and of the nation-state.
Thriving against all odds, Caribbean knowledge is sustained by a metaphorical movement of translation, permutation and exile that has always been favored by the geography of that boundless space of flows and endless possible connections that is the Caribbean Sea and the Greater Insular Atlantic world. Contrary to the predatory tactics of various philosophical schools, messianic practices and manifestos of all kinds, Caribbean thought points the way towards the most variable adaptations and imaginations, secretly aiming at the possibility of avoiding confrontation and violence at all costs. Thus, it is in this most active and ancient region of the modern world where certain modest gestures towards a truly sustainable universal culture might be found. As it turns out, the imaginary place where the nightmare of global empire was born, the cursed islands where race was begotten, the warm sea that has been pillaged continuously since the first day, is still the site wherein lies an unsuspected treasure yet to be discovered.
A boundless geography of possibility
Shortly before his untimely death, the great Caribbean thinker Antonio Benítez Rojo chartered the geography of what he called a New Atlantis, pointing out that "recently the referential base of this [Antillean] discourse has expanded to include continental territories with Caribbean coasts, as well as to study the entire sociocultural phenomenon of the area from the point of view of the Creole or creolization." The geographic and historical panorama he promoted included not just the Antilles and their continental hinterlands but the entire meta-archipelago that includes the islands of the tropical and sub-tropical Atlantic: "Much has been written about these islands, but I know of no work that has studied them in depth as a group, that is, from the perspective of the historical, socioeconomic, and cultural links within this vast territory that includes Anguilla. Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, the Azores, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bioko (formerly Fernando Póo), the British Virgin Islands, the Canary Islands, the cape Verde Islands, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guadalupe, Haiti, Jamaica, the Madeira islands, Martinique, Montserrat, the Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Saint Helena and Ascension, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Andrés and Providencia, Sáo Tomé and Príncipe, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Virgin Islands of the United States." (Antonio Benítez Rojo, The New Atlantis: The Ultimate Caribbean Archipelago)
A most unprecedented and unique program offering
The Program in Caribbean Cultural Studies offers a select group of highly qualified, motivated, mature and independent-minded students the possibility to study this New Atlantis on its own terms through an unprecedented partnership between the Escuela de Estudios Hispanoamericanos (EEHA) in Seville, Spain, the Universidad Atónoma de Yucatán (UADY) in Merida, Mexico, the Universidad de La Habana (UH), Cuba, and the University at Buffalo.
Designed to prepare attractive candidates for doctoral programs and future scholars in a variety of disciplines in the Liberal Arts, this first-of-its-kind Masters in Caribbean Cultural Studies program provides students the unique opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge of the complex history, cultures, and intellectual traditions of the New Atlantean meta-archipelago through onsite investigation and direct participation in the processes that shape everyday life in the insular and continental communities of the Caribbean and the Greater Insular Atlantic world, as well as in their diasporic populations in North America and Europe. Our pedagogical approach is thoroughly transdisciplinary. Student work may be channeled through a variety of different paths and thesis/final project outcomes: from historical research to documentary filmmaking, from critical cultural studies to policy papers, from essays on politics and philosophy to performances and artwork. Yet, all studies are faithfully predicated on the basis of active cultural immersion and thoroughly grounded in the methodical study of archival sources and history.
Participants in this unique two-year program will have the rare opportunity to spend two of four semesters studying outside of the United States. This journey is framed within a rigorous academic program that provides proper methodological training to prepare students for fieldwork and intensive archival research. Following an initial semester in Buffalo, participants will spend one semester in Mérida de Yucatán, Mexico. That semester begins with a two-week study tour of Yucatan, Belize and the Gulf of Honduras, traveling through the Mayab world and visiting the communities of the Black Caribs or Garifuna people. A third semester in Seville, Spain, will include a one-week study tour of the Canary Islands in advance of three full months of intensive archival research and translation of primary sources and documents in the Archive of the Indies (AGI). The fourth and final semester in Buffalo will be devoted entirely to work on the master's thesis. Yet, at the start of the semester, students will be expected to conduct self-financed and short-term independent field work, or research in any number of possible archives, including but not limited to institutions in Cartagena de Indias, Havana, London, Madrid, Mexico City, New York City, Paris, San Juan de Puerto Rico, and Washington D.C.
Requirements
Applicants must have earned a minimum of 3.0 GPA during their undergraduate studies. Interested students must possess native or near-native fluency and be fully literate (reading and writing) in English and Spanish. Advanced reading and writing skills in French are strongly preferred. Only emotionally mature, open-minded and independent students with a serious interest in conducting intensive archival research need apply.
Is this the program you had been waiting for?
If you meet all the above requirements and the following pages convince you that this is the program for you, fill out an application as soon as possible. We will review your application once all the materials are received.
The program accepts candidates on a rolling basis until all spaces are filled. There are no GRE's or TOEFL exam requirements. But entry is highly competitive and there is limited space every year.
We take in students for Fall Entry Only and will not accept applications after FEBRUARY
1ST for fall entry in the same year.
How to Contact Us
For more information about the program, fill out our online questionnaire or contact:
Lisa K. Hewitt
Assitant to the Director
Program in Caribbean Studies
712 Clemens Hall
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-4600
(716) 645-3664
lkhewitt@buffalo.edu