CONNECTING CARIBBEAN HISTORICISM & MYTHOPOETICISM

"I have never separated the writing of poetry from prayer."   – Derek Walcott

Whether we are looking at lo real maravilloso, negrismo, Négritude, Antillanité, créolité, and other aesthetic movements of the Caribbean, we find special attention to the task of regenerating, healing, and properly describing the new forms of life, ancestor veneration, and creative practice forged in the crucible of the transatlantic. Antiguan philosopher Paget Henry calls this the Afro-Caribbean mythopoetic tradition. Henry works to heal the "cleavages and lack of dialogue that persist" (Henry 2000: xi) between the major schools of Caribbean thought, particularly between the rationalist materialist historicists (Franz Fanon, CLR James, Eric Williams, Walter Rodney, etc) and the protean, radically creative thinkers of mythopoeticism (Wilson Harris, Édouard Glissant, Dionne Brand, etc).

In their new course hosted by The School of Making Thinking, Dominican artist manuel arturo abreu and any interested students take up Henry's project of connecting the two major Caribbean traditions, in four weekly sessions of creative, open-ended discussion that seek to draw on the radical resources of consciousness to push back on the ways that "historicism remained enmeshed in European discourses on modernity" (56). A central proposal is that thinkers and makers who have helped bridge the gap between historicism and poeticism already exist: Sylvia Wynter, Audre Lorde, etc. How do we honor and continue their work, and, as M. NourbeSe Philip puts it in Zong!, "defend the dead" as we hew the shape of our horizon?​

Part of this task involves unearthing the mythopoetic tradition proper, placing it into conversation with its ancestors and other contemporary tendencies in the fragmented field, and using the "power of mythopoetic action to regenerate the self" (Henry 2000: 94) to achieve a larger unity in Caribbean thought that can measure up to the region's creolization and syncretism, drawing on the omens of capacity latent within our history and present. Despite ruptures from colonization and neoliberalism, the mythopoetic tradition is precisely what "has kept our intellectual tradition quite close to the traditional African and Indian totalities" (16). This course will feature minimal and optional weekly homework consisting of reading, viewing, and listening material, and students will optionally engage a collective process of producing material reflecting on our discussions and assignments in whatever media we like, such as writing, sound, or still or moving image.

INSTRUCTORS

manuel arturo abreu (*1991 Santo Domingo) is a non-disciplinary artist working with what is at hand in a process of magical thinking with attention to ritual aspects of aesthetics. They have recently exhibited at Konrad Fischer Galerie (Düsseldorf), Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts project space (NYC), the Portland Art Museum, SIMIAN (Copenhagen), Kunstverein München (Munich), Bergen Kunsthall, Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler (Berlin), HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark (Graz), Veronica project space (Seattle), and Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Vienna). Since 2015, with co-founder Victoria Anne Reis, abreu has co-facilitated home school, a free pop-up art school and space of sacred duty in the Pacific Northwest that has been in residence at Yale Union (2019) and Oregon Contemporary (2023). Since 2020, abreu has created and directed a suite of independent courses exploring alternatives to the Euro-enlightenment origin myths regarding abstraction and creativity, attending instead to African, Asian, Indigenous, and pagan European pre-enlightenment lineages of abstraction.
Image credit: Jean-Ulrick Désert, Rainbow Panel from The Waters of Kiskeya, 2017. Photo: Ludger Paffrath
Wednesdays, 8-10 PM EST (5-7PM PST)
​Online on Zoom
120 minute sessions, 4 weeks
February 5th - 26th
$125 - $375 Tuition
Select scholarships and solidarity rate discounts available upon request.