The 43rd Annual West Indian Literature Conference begins next week, October 8-11, 2025, at the University of Miami (UM), in Coral Gables, Florida. The organizing theme is “The Time of the ‘Bruggadung’: States of EmUrgency.” This conference includes exciting workshops, keynote conversations, book launches, and readings. Some events will take place at the Newman Alumni Center at UM and others will be hosted by the Pérez Art Museum Miami. Featured artists and authors include Tanya Batson-Savage, Erica Moiah James, Fabienne Josaphat, Anthony Joseph, Diana McCaulay, Key Miller, Angelique V. Nixon, Urayoán Noel, Deborah Thomas, Tiphanie Yanique.
Description: “but leh murder start an’ bruggalungdung/ yu cahn fine a man to hole up de side” (Kamau Brathwaite)
Today, Caribbean societies and, by extension, Caribbean writers, reckon with crises that feel both new and cyclical. Increased volcanic activities, record-breaking hurricanes, droughts and heatwaves are only some of the environmental pressures we face. States of Emergency in response to political and social violence have become commonplace in Haiti, Trinidad and Jamaica. As a group of Caribbean critics, we have also had to reckon with the passing of a generation that helped to establish and define our field. In its broadest sense, this year’s Conference of West Indian Literature, convened around the theme, ‘The Time of the Bruggadung: States of EmUrgency,’ asks the simple question: what are Caribbean writers reckoning with today?
That almost comic word of Bajan creole, ‘bruggadung’, becomes something even larger than the onomatopoeic sound of a bang or commotion in the mytho-poetic world of Brathwaite. Instead, it becomes the sound of environmental disaster (“all uh know/ is that one day suddenly so/ this mountain leggo one brugg-a-lung-go” – “The Dust”), or else the sound of social and cultural disaster (“but leh murder start an’ bruggalungdung/ yu cahn fine a man to hole up de side.” – “Rites”), or even the sound of the collapse of Apartheid (‘bongo man a come/ bongo man a come/ bruggadung’ – “Soweto”). Always, the bruggadung signals a time of reckoning.
To register, go to https://english.as.miami.edu/events/windianlitconf/registration/index.html
For more information, see https://english.as.miami.edu/events/windianlitconf/workshops/index.html
[Image above from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-miami-1536]
The 43rd Annual West Indian Literature Conference begins next week, October 8-11, 2025, at the University of Miami (UM), in Coral Gables, Florida. The organizing theme is “The Time of the ‘Bruggadung’: States of EmUrgency.” This conference includes exciting workshops, keynote conversations, book launches, and readings. Some events will take place at the Newman Alumni Center
