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GUYANA FOLK FESTIVAL SYMPOSIUM
Origins, Identity and Influence - “Oii”
PROGRAM
Saturday, September 1, 2007
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
All sessions take
place in the Conference Room.
Displays and sales of
materials are in areas designated.
Light refreshments
are available during the day.
Floor Coordinators:
Mr. Maurice Braithwaite; Mr. Godfrey Chin
9:00 AM - 10: A.M.
Registration
Registration
continues throughout the day
Registrar: Lorna
McKenzie
Registration fee is
$10:00.
Registration fee is
waived for all presenters.
Registration badges
must be worn by all persons throughout the Symposium.
All media, including
photographers and videographers, must have the permission of the
Symposium Committee/GCA and/or GCA.
For clearance, call:
GUYANA FOLK FESTIVAL COMMITTEE @ 718 -209-5207
Media must sign in at
Media Desk.
10:00 AM
THE SYMPOSIUM
BEGINS
Introduction: Vibert Cambridge, Ph.D. Professor, School
of Telecommunications, Ohio University,
Ohio.
Homage and
Libation
A reading of
Kakum: a ballad composed by Dr. Erwin Brewster to pay
homage to his great grandmother, Sarah Millington, whose roots were
traced back to the Fante people of Ghana.
Introduction: Ms. Muriel Glasgow
Performance artist:
Sister Georgina Ama Ohene.
10:30 AM
The Symposium
Address
Introduction:
Juliet Emanuel, D.A. BMCC/CUNY
The Address
Dr. Cyril Dabydeen,
2007 Guyana Prize co-winner for Literature: Drums of My Flesh.
The Response
11:00 - 11:10 AM
Coffee Break
11:10 AM - 12:40
PM
The Hinterland,
The Heartland and Oii
Section A
Barbara Josiah,
Ph.D. John Jay College/CUNY, NY, Department of History.
Searching for Eldorado: African Diaspora Migration and Mortality in the
Development of Guyana’s Gold and Diamond Industries,
1890 - 1956.
Peter Lauchmonen
Kempadoo, United Kingdom; Guyana.
Independent Scholar.
A
History of African Religions.
Prem Misir, Ph.D.
Head Presidential Press and Public Affairs Unit, Office of the
President, Government of Guyana, Pro-Chancellor, University of Guyana.
Sustaining The Social and Economic Relations of
Slavery.
Five minute break
Section B
Simone James
Alexander, Ph.D. Seton Hall University, NJ. Department of Africana and
Diaspora Studies.
To
Heed or Not to Ancestral Calling: City Limits and Village Values in Jan
Carew’s Black Midas.
Roslin Khan, Ph.
D. Suffolk Community College/SUNY, NY, Chair, Foreign Language.
Poet of the Heart, Mind and Revolution:
Martin Carter.
Discussion
12: 40 - 1: 30 PM
Lunch Break
On your Own.
List of
restaurants provided in the Registration Package.
1:30 - 2:50 PM
IN MELODY AND WORD: An examination of Music and the
Guyanese Diaspora
Panel Chair: Dawn Forde Arno, Ph.D. Director, Ed-Zone, Teachers College,
Columbia University, NY.
Panelists
Vibert Cambridge,
Department of African America Studies, Ohio University, Ohio.
Music and the Guyanese Diaspora.
Ronald H. Lammy, CEO, eCaroh Caribbean Emporium
Oii
Revisited: An Examination of Contemporary Lyricists
Juliet Emanuel, Department of Developmental Skills, BMCC/CUNY, NY
The Invidious Influence on Church Music in Guyana
Discussion
2:50 - 3:00 PM
Ten Minute Break
3:00 - 5:30 PM
Roundtable
A Legacy to Mould:
Restoring Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham to History
Moderator: Ivelaw
L. Griffith, York College/CUNY, Provost and Senior Vice President for
Academic Affairs.
Participants
Aubrey Bonnett,
Ph.D. SUNY Old Westbury, Professor, American Studies.
Thomas Cope, Esq.,
Columbia University, NY.
Guyana
and the JFK Affair.
David Hinds, Ph.D.
Arizona State University, African and African American Studies.
This Damned Nonsense Must Stop: Eusi Kwayana and
Political Contrariness.
Linden F. Lewis,
Ph.D. Bucknell University, Lewisburg Pa., Department of
Sociology/Anthropology.
Mr. Halim Majeed.
Shakoor Manraj,
Esq., Q. C.
Eric Phillips,
Guyana.
African Guyanese and Politics.
Maurice St.
Pierre, Ph.D. Morgan State University, Maryland.
Burnham and the Politics of Nationhood and Nation
Building.
Robert Waters,
Ph.D. Ohio Northern University, History. (abstract read by J. Emanuel)
Discussion.
THE SYMPOSIUM
ENDS.
Post Symposium
Participants may
engage in Heritage Trails: Walks through Harlem, NY.
Self guided tours are
provided in Registration Packages.
Heritage Trails
Coordinator: Ms. Isabel Cummings, Community and Cultural
activist, Harlem, NY.; Assistant Director, Office of Student Activities,
BMCC/CUNY.
Remember to visit the
Cotton Club
666 West 125th Street
New York, NY 10027
Telephone: (212) 663-7980
THE FIFTH ANNUAL SYMPOSIUM 2007
Theme: “Oii” (Origins, Identity, and Influence)
Saturday, September 1, 2007
9 am to 4 pm.
Columbia University, Edmund Gordon Campus at Theresa Towers,
8th Floor, 2090 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd, New York, NY10027
(Corner of 125th and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. … obliquely opposite the
State Office Building)
This year, 2007, is the bicentennial of the abolition
of the trade in African captives. With this anniversary as part of its
focus, Symposium 2007 has as its theme Origins, Identity and Influence (Oii).
The concept of Oii was introduced during Symposium 2006, Celebrating Our
Caribbean Heritage, Carifesta ‘72 Revisited, by Ron Lammy of eCaroh and
GCA in his presentation. Participating in Symposium 2007, Origins,
Identity, Influence, (Oii), are Dr. Vibert Cambridge, Dr. Aubrey Bonnett,
Dr. Juliet Emanuel, Dr. Dawn Arno, Dr. Prem Misir, Mr. Cyril Dabydeen ,
Mr. David Michael Rudder, Dr. Shakoor Manraj, Dr. (sister) Ama Ohene,
Mr. Peter Kempadoo, Dr. Calvin Brutus, Dr. Indrani Rampersad, Mr. Ron
Lammy, Dr. Erwin Brewster and Mr. Malcolm Hall, among others.
Papers, performances and discussions will reflect on
the multiple expressions of Oii in all aspects of Guyanese life: the
arts, church and religion, commerce and industry, education, science and
technology, politics, language, literature, music, history, the Diaspora
and interracial relations. In keeping with the theme for 2007, Mr.
David Michael Rudder, the acclaimed calypsonian will be one of our
panelists.
Registration for Symposium, 2007 is $10.00.
Symposium Organizers:
- Dr. Dawn Arno, Director, TC EdZone, Teachers
College, Columbia University
- Dr. Aubrey Bonnett, Professor, SUNY/College at
Old Westbury, New York
- Dr. Vibert C. Cambridge, Professor, School of
Telecommunications, Ohio University, Athens, OH
- Dr. Juliet Emanuel, Professor, Borough of
Manhattan Community College/CUNY, New York
- Dr. Prem Misir, Pro-Chancellor, University of
Guyana, Guyana
Co-hosts for the symposium
INTRODUCTION
This year, 2007, is the bicentennial of the abolition
of the trade in African captives and the working theme of the symposium
will be "Oii" (Origins, Identity, and Influence). "Oii" is a word that
is used in Guyanese dialect to say hello, hey there, how are you doing,
stop, let's have a chat----all rolled into one expression. Using the
bicentennial as a starting point, the goal of the symposium will be to
reflect on the multiple expressions of "Oii" in all aspects of Guyanese
life--the arts, church and religion, commerce and industry, the diaspora,
education, science and technology, politics, religion, language,
literature, music, history, and interracial relations.
Topics for panels, papers, performances, or other
forms of expression include, but are not limited to:
- Science and Technology
- The effect of orality on the
development of media and vice versa
- Roots, cures and current
recognition/experimentation of indigenous plants
- Botanical
considerations from the country of origin, Africa
- Current developments
in science via people of Guyanese descent
- Current developments in
technology via people of Guyanese descent
- Necessary use of the
environment
- Church and Religion
- Mythologizing the origins
- Myth as
memory
- Creating religiosity in a foreign land
- Commerce and Industry
- Considerations of the
plantations, settlement and resettlement
- The history of transportation
within an agricultural society
- Examining the productions of sugar and
bauxite and other products in Guyana
- Sugar as king: Booker and its salve
to the conscience
- Box-hand and informal saving systems
- The Porknocker,
the Bowman, and the Timberman
- Voluntarism and National Development in
the Host Society /Diaspora
- Language, history and literature
- The Fine Arts (Music,
Painting and Sculpture)
- Proverbs as a keyhole into Oii
- Dramatizing
Guyana
- Writing Guyana
- Examining the history of Guyana
- Whereto Guyana: a
place of mind? Memory?
- The poetry of Guyana
- Education in Guyana
- Considerations of education in
Guyana, formal and informal
- “Bottom-House” schools and School teachers?
- The effect of the terrain on education in Guyana
- Broadcasts to Schools:
Terrain, technology and the role of radio in the development of distance
learning
- Creation of State and Government
- The village, the
village hall; the town, the town hall: denotations of grouping in Guyana
- The emergence of nation in Guyana
- African Guyanese and national politics
- A Map still being drawn, Guyana as experiment
- Great Minds of the Guyana
nation and the diaspora
- The Fabric of Guyana
- The land as director: the
seawall; breaking and containing man in Guyana
- Clothes as symbols of
restraint/oppression/ rebellion
- Who is Guyanese?
THE PROCESS
Panels, Papers, Performances
Persons interested in participating are invited to
register by proposing a provisional topic by May 30, 2007. Abstracts,
not exceeding 300 words in length must be sent in an electronic form to
Dr. Vibert C. Cambridge at cambridg@ohio.edu by June 30, 2007. A short
biography, a photograph, and technology needs (if any) must accompany
the abstract.
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