Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies Research

Situating Black British Writing: 18th Century to the Present

Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship (2022-2025)

As an area of study, ‘Black British Writing’ currently attracts global interest although, in Britain, the field has been seriously neglected as an object of study by Anglophone Arts/ Humanities research communities. The situation is especially regrettable given the growth in visibility of Black British writers, including the 2021 Nobel Laureate, Abdulrazak Gurnah, and despite the creation of the first postgraduate programme in Black British Writing (Goldsmiths, 2015). Through the historical view of 400 years of contested writing, this research is concerned to situate the field in relation to the Humanities, critical thought and changing understanding of the signifier ‘black’.

Behind the Looking-Glass: 'Other'-cultures-within Translating Cultures

An AHRC Research Network (2011-2013)

This two-year AHRC funded Research Network brings together leading academics from ten universities, and employs methods and perspectives from across the fields of literature, museum studies, linguistics, history, sociology and anthropology to examine the determinants and impact of the construction of cultural identity and the act of translation as collaboration and shared knowledge.

The group’s collective transnational scholarship highlights a rich seam of cultural translation in the ‘relative and related’ intersections of creolisation, Britishness and Global English of interest to scholars, teachers, creative artists, museum educators and education professionals.

Our proposal, premised on translation as collaboration and shared interdisciplinary knowledges, responds to the ‘Highlight Notice’ for ‘Translating Cultures’. It gathers researchers whose collective scholarship is grounded in transcultural discourse and intersecting theoretical questions on the complexities of cultural translation. It aims at critically questioning meanings of cultural translation, by regarding first, texts marked by creolisation, a discourse originated through intercultural exchanges (Glissant, Brathwaite).

Black Body in Europe: Networking and Researching the Terrain

From our various positions - whether resident in or out of European countries - the black body appears to be loaded with meanings. Members of the Caribbean and African Studies Researchers Association (CAFSRA) - based at the Centre for Caribbean Studies - found themselves returning time and again in debate to the complexity of meanings of the black body in different European locations and historical periods. Out of this recurring concern, the 'Black Body in Europe Project' was conceived.

The pilot project, funded by the British Academy, supported the development of a network of UK researchers and the crucial beginnings of a dialogue with researchers based in a range of European settings. An interdisciplinary group, we are concerned to inquire into questions of visibility/invisibility of the black body in order to tease out some of their meanings. We are interested to disseminate information concerning this important cross-disciplinary area of enquiry which remains so clearly of particular contemporary significance. The project is led by Joan Anim-Addo.

Other projects

British Academy (2001)
Swinging her Breasts at History