Island People: The Global Impact of the Caribbean & Gulf South

Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 6:00pm
Geographer and writer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's groundbreaking new book, Island People: The Caribbean and the World, is a collection of personal travelogues from diverse Caribbean countries that articulates the complexity and beauty of the region and its far-reaching influence on the world. Join us for a conversation between Dr. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro and Dr. Kim Vaz-Deville, author of The Baby Dolls: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Traditions, to draw out cultural and political connections between the Caribbean and the Gulf South and the under-told story of the global impact of both regions. A reception with light refreshments, walk-in cash bar, and Caribbean-Gulf South music dance party featuring a DJ set by Jneiro Jarel and hosted by Three Keys (600 Carondelet St.) will follow the discussion. Both events are free and open to the public. Copies of the book will be available for purchase after the talk and at Three Keys at the Ace Hotel. Jelly-Schapiro will sign books at both locations. Three Keys at Ace Hotel Information here: THREE KEYS at Ace Hotel New Orleans 600 Carondelet Street @ThreeKeysNola @AceNewOrleans www.threekeysnola.com Spread the word! “Chronicling his travels through the Caribbean, this is also a magnificent musical journey (reggae, salsa and ska), a literary odyssey (CLR James, Jean Rhys, VS Naipaul), and a heartfelt historical voyage throughout which he asks a question ‘at the core of our politics now: How universal, really, are universal rights?’ Island People powerfully shows how places shape people, and how people shape places.” Anita Sethi, writer, journalist, and broadcaster, on Jelly-Schapiro’s Island People. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro is a geographer, writer, and visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. His essays on arts and history have appeared in the New York Review of Books, Harper's, the Guardian, The Paris Review and American Prospect, amongst other publications. He has contributed chapters and introductions to several books, including an introduction to Patrick Leigh Fermor's The Traveler's Tree, and he is the co-editor of Nonstop Metropolis: A New York City Atlas and editor-at-large of Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. Kim Vaz-Deville is associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Xavier University of Louisiana. She is the author of The Baby Dolls: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gas Tradition, Louisiana State University Press (2013). The ‘Baby Dolls’ was the 2016 selection of the Young Leadership Council’s program, One Book One New Orleans New Orleans, a campaign for literacy and community. Dr. Vaz-Deville’s current book and exhibit project is entitled “Cultures in Conversation: African Diaspora Sacred and Secular Ritual practitioners on Leadership, Communication, Beauty, and Community.” It explores dialogues between New Orleans’ current day Afro-diasporic sacred arts communities and African American Mardi Gras culture-bearers whose ritual roles share a common principle such as justice, leadership, protection, communication, sensuality and death.

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