Make way | On Caribbean innovation
A note to our readers from editor Nicholas Laughlin, as we present our second specially curated online-only edition of Caribbean Beat
Caribbean Innovation (15 May 2020)
Kamau Brathwaite (1930–2020) | Icon
On his ninetieth birthday, 11 May, 2020, Kelly Baker Josephs explains the groundbreaking influence of the late Barbadian poet and scholar, perennially ahead of his time. An online exclusive
Sir Hilary Beckles: “I’m aware of how fragile the Caribbean is” | Own words
Sir Hilary Beckles, Barbadian historian, cricket enthusiast, and UWI vice chancellor, on his intellectual formation, the role of a Caribbean university, and the moral imperative of slavery reparations — as told to Shelly-Ann Inniss
Stories of steel — the future of the steelpan | Panorama
Carnival is the season of steelpan. But behind the Panorama stage, the future of T&T’s national musical instrument will be shaped by administrators, craftspeople, arrangers, and educators — like these men and women profiled by writer Sharmain Baboolal and photographer Mark Lyndersay
Create Caribbean: tech to the people | Plugin
Founded by scholar Schuyler Esprit, Dominica’s Create Caribbean was well on its way to making tech tools for education available to all. Then Hurricane Maria hit. Lisa Allen-Agostini discovers how the digital humanities project is putting the pieces back together
Johanan Dujon — seaweed for sale | The deal
For St Lucian Johanan Dujon, sargassum-covered beaches are’t just a problem — they’re an opportunity. As Erline Andrews learns, Dujon has his eye on a regional market for his Algas Organics line of fertilisers
The games are afoot | Snapshot
Video games aren’t just for teenagers to have fun — globally, they’re a highly lucrative business, requiring state-of-the-art technical know-how, creative flair, and significant investment. Mark Lyndersay meets the minds behind Couple Six and Coded-Arts, video game developers in Barbados and T&T, whose agenda includes creating games that reflect the culture of their home islands
A compendium of curry | Cookup
From Jamaican goat to Trini doubles, curry is one of the definitive flavours of the Caribbean. There are hundreds of curry blends around the world — what are the Caribbean’s best, and how are they evolving? Franka Philip finds out
CimaVax: revolutionary medicine
The CimaVax vaccine may be the biggest breakthrough yet in the treatment of lung cancer — and it’s just one of the success stories of Cuba’s biotechnology innovation. Nazma Muller investigates
Five Caribbean artists in the brave new digital world
Artists are always eager to experiment with new tools, so it’s no surprise that digital media offer them a creative playground. Nicole Smythe-Johnson surveys how Caribbean artists are exploring digital possibilities, and introduces five young creatives shaping the ways we experience digital images
Stories of what-if
Call it sci-fi, speculative fiction, fantasy — it’s one of the world’s most popular genres of storytelling, and a growing wave of Caribbean writers are bringing our voices, culture, and history to tales of mythical pasts and thrilling futures, lost worlds and faraway planets. Philip Sander talks to sci-fi authors Nalo Hopkinson, Tobias Buckell, Karen Lord, and R.S.A. Garcia
Another giant leap: Camille Wardrop-Alleyne
When a three-year-old Camille Wardrop Alleyne watched the 1969 Moon landing on TV in Trinidad, she couldn’t have imagined she’d one day be part of the exploration of outer space. As a NASA scientist, she now helps run the International Space Station. And her second passion, as Erline Andrews discovers, is the campaign to get more young people — especially girls — into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math
Iwokrama: Guyana’s green gold
Peter Rickwood finds Guyana’s Iwokrama forest and wildlife reserve full of riches and hope for the planet’s future
Toffee experiment & more
Anu Lakhan embarks on the Great Experiment: to recreate, or at least approximate, the perfect toffee, plus more
The Blackmans: all in the family
When calypsonian and soca pioneer Lord Shorty (Garfield Blackman) reformed his flashy lifestyle and retreated to rural Piparo in the late 1970s, Trinidadian music would change forever...
Clement Dodd: studio legend
Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd, Jamaica’s legendary record producer and nurturer of reggae artists, died in May. Music writer David Katz remembers his career
Frantz Fanon: black skin, no mask
Frantz Fanon was a brilliant, maverick thinker, a theorist of anti-colonialism who tried to understand the damaged psyche of his native Martinique and the violence that racked his adopted country, Algeria, in its struggle for independence. His writings — especially Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth — are lauded by contemporary postcolonial scholars, but few manage to grasp the complexity of his thought or the depth of his humanism. Jeremy Taylor searches for the man behind the revolutionary icon, and ponders Fanon's relevance to the 21st century world
Dave Chadee — mosquito man
Most people don’t think of entomology as a life-saving profession, but going by per capita impact, mosquitoes may be the most dangerous animals on Earth. And Trinidadian scientist Dave Chadee stands in the middle of a “perfect swarm” of the tiny bloodsuckers. Nazma Muller learns about his groundbreaking research, with the potential to save millions of lives
Alan Emtage: The Codefather
Georgia Popplewell meets Alan Emtage, the Barbadian coder who wrote the world’s first search engine
Euzhan Palcy: Making Waves
Martiniquan filmmaker Euzhan Palcy directed Marlon Brando and Donald Sutherland in A Dry White Season: what's next?
