Skip to content

Saracca and Nation

African Memory and Re-creation in Grenada (Film Screening)

February 3, 2009

MITH Conference Room

Merle Collins

Professor, Department of English, University of Maryland

The video documentary Saracca and Nation, an exploration of the role of memory in the creation of contemporary culture, presents two cultural “performances” in the Caribbean island state of Grenada — the River Sallee saracca and the Carriacou Big Drum Nation Dance. It considers how these cultural performances owe their existence to African memory and re-creation.

Speaker Bios

MERLE COLLINS, MITH Fellow, is a professor in the English Department, teaching Caribbean Literature. The video documentary, Saracca and Nation: African Memory and Re-Creation in Grenada, is her most recent work, produced with a MITH Fellowship. A writer of poetry and fiction, her recent publications include creative non-fiction, “Tout Moun Ka Plewe” (Everybody Bawling). Small Axe. A Journal of Caribbean History and Culture. Indiana University Press, 2007 and “Shadowboxing,” short story in Elizabeth Nunez, ed., Stories from Blue Latitutes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad.” Seattle: Seal Press, 2005


Related News