A Worldbuilding Moment: Aesthetics and Economics in the Caribbean Festival of Arts’ (Carifesta) Revolutionary Era, 1966-1981

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorLópez-Durán, Fabiolaen_US
dc.creatorRooney, Adrienne Aen_US
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-01T20:22:29Zen_US
dc.date.created2023-08en_US
dc.date.issued2023-08-11en_US
dc.date.submittedAugust 2023en_US
dc.date.updated2023-09-01T20:22:29Zen_US
dc.descriptionEMBARGO NOTE: This item is embargoed until 2029-08-01en_US
dc.description.abstractA Worldbuilding Moment tells a story of the early years of the Caribbean Festival of Arts (Carifesta), a roving, multimedia, multilingual, and still semi-regularly recurring festival. Homing in on what I call Carifesta’s “revolutionary era”—comprising its founding, inauguration in Guyana (1972), and iterations in Jamaica (1976), Cuba (1979), and Barbados (1981), after which it went into an unplanned decade-long hibernation—it shows how artists, intellectuals, and audiences reveled, imagined, and debated at the festivals among cultural production from the Caribbean islands, mainland countries touched by the Caribbean Sea, and beyond. Coevolving with economic efforts for pan-Caribbean integration, Carifesta embodied a dream to unite a region fragmented by Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonial empires. The first book-length academic study of the festival, A Worldbuilding Moment adds depth and historic clarity to understanding Carifesta’s emergence and entanglements with regional integration. It shows, too, that the early festivals were entwined with a hope for a new world order marked by self-government, cultural sovereignty, and an economic model distinct from the colonial capitalist system. Hubs of leftist discourse, (ethno)nationalist politics, boycotts, and Cold War and Nonaligned political diplomacy, Carifesta played a multidimensional role in postcolonial worldbuilding in a moment shaped by the Bandung Conference, the Cuban Revolution, strivings for West Indian unity, Pan-Africanism, and Black Power. A plurality of hopes shaped Carifesta, and decolonization generally; however, centering artists, artworks, theorists, and political figures, A Worldbuilding Moment argues that, varied hopes aside, the “Carifesta complex”—a concept I coin—fundamentally ruptured one of the most profound tenets of colonial logic: a logic deeming the “wider Caribbean” where the plantation reigned a site for economic extraction—or later touristic pleasure—not cultural production. Situating the festival as a (temporary and imperfect) rejoinder to the multilingual plantation system, I show that racial, class, and dependency (cultural) politics rooted in the plantation system were not absent from the festivals. However, I emphasize how such forces were redressed within these intricate, (at times contested) groundbreaking gatherings integral to a moment of envisioning a new world order and redrawing the terms and imaginary of the region.en_US
dc.embargo.lift2029-08-01en_US
dc.embargo.terms2029-08-01en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationRooney, Adrienne A. "A Worldbuilding Moment: Aesthetics and Economics in the Caribbean Festival of Arts' (Carifesta) Revolutionary Era, 1966-1981." (2023) Diss., Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/115260.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/115260en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectColonialismen_US
dc.subjectDecolonizationen_US
dc.subjectDevelopmenten_US
dc.subjectEpistemologyen_US
dc.subjectExhibitionsen_US
dc.subjectPlantationen_US
dc.subjectPopular cultureen_US
dc.subjectRaceen_US
dc.titleA Worldbuilding Moment: Aesthetics and Economics in the Caribbean Festival of Arts’ (Carifesta) Revolutionary Era, 1966-1981en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentArt Historyen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
Files
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
PROQUEST_LICENSE.txt
Size:
5.84 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
LICENSE.txt
Size:
2.98 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
Collections
Rice University Theses and Dissertations