Towards a Caribbean Learning Institute

The largely informal relationship developed over the years between TTIWI fellows and North American guest students appears to be reaching a threshold. The Institute's Open College has been taking new shape and is now formalized to advance both concept and operations. The periodic exchanges facilitated by TTIWI over the last so many decades have laid planks for what is now emerging as a full-fledged Caribbean Learning Institute.

It is a unique experiment, responding, if unconsciously, to a need for new models of teaching, sharing and learning. The aim is to address the relatively new problem of study and enquiry, posed by a quite insensible improvement in communications, the annihilation of distance often exaggeratedly described as global.

Students are indeed leading a far more global existence than ever before. However, they're finding it increasingly difficult to cope with learning, now that we're faced with a much greater variety of epistemic systems. It is not simply that their work and their lives place them in much more ample interface. They also encounter societies and civilizations so distinct, and possessed of institutions and cultures so distinctive, the problem of interpretation can scarcely be escaped.

In any event, it is certain that the problem that newly independent societies have of making themselves viable has brought knotty epistemological issues to the fore. Learning involves much more than transposition and ingestion: it requires much more investigation, enquiry and assimilation. The angle of observation is decisive. So far from being a luxury, “cross-border' adventure has become indispensable for the student. It is therefore imperative that students be located within the given culture-zone so as to favour its own point of observation and appraisal.

TTIWI expects to attract students from colleges in different parts of North America, especially New England, New York, Washington, Florida, Toronto. We're also looking towards Great Britain, France and Holland. We hope to interest students who, for being of Caribbean origin, might have a special interest. We're also working to repeat programme to cover the Long Vacation and another term. The aim is to multiply exchange across culture frontiers and facilitate cross fertilization through schemes of collective accreditation.

The Institute's lecture programme in Caribbean civilization is meant to be a core course focussing on culture, anthropology, arts, social history and economic life with emphasis on Trinidad and Tobago. It covers the following clusters:

Lecturers include teachers, writers and political thinkers. With the aid of field trips, they will introduce aspects of the complex ethnicity of the islands as well as their rich cultural, literary, artistic and sociological legacies.

For visiting students, this core course is uniquely designed to explore the Carnival Arts as cultural performance. It considers the culture-bearing festival to be an integral aspect of the story of Trinidad and Tobago, reflecting a history of enslavement and indentureship, liberation and celebration. It examines levels of participation in the nation festival by the ethnic groups that make up the population. The course encourages students not only to participate in and study Carnival but also to create performances or presentations based on their own appropriation of traditional characters such as stick-fighters, midnight robbers, baby dolls, dame lorraines, minstrels, etc.

Related Topics
Internship 2005
Lecture Programme in Caribbean Civilisation