The Post-Columbus Syndrome
Subtitle: Identities, Cultural Nationalism, and Commemorations in the Caribbean
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: Oct 17, 2014
Language: eng
Format: hardcover
Number of pages: 282
ISBN-13: 9781137443748
Description: "The islands of the Caribbean demonstrated a complex and heterogeneous response the 500th anniversary of the "Discovery of the New World". Feeling threatened by new forms of exploitation at the time, they responded by narrating their heritage and commemorating their hybrid identity in scenarios meant to protect a sense of national belonging. Columbus, as a hero of both Spanish and colonial history, became a reservoir of metaphors with which confront anxieties of the present with myths of the past. Commissions to debate the meaning of Columbus's arrival in the region were launched nationally on some islands, with different and uneven consequences in the commemorative public sphere in the Hispanic, English and French Caribbean. Jamaica condemned Columbus as a pirate; the Dominican Republic commemorated him as a Hispanic godfather, but Haiti toppled his statue. In Cuba and in Puerto Rico, the Taíno heritage was at the forefront of the commemorations, while in Guadeloupe and Martinique, Columbus was publically trialled"--
Notes: Source title: The Post-Columbus Syndrome: Identities, Cultural Nationalism, and Commemorations in the Caribbean (New Caribbean Studies)