C.IAS Lecture - Don E. Walicek

“Freedom and Abolition Democracy”

Don E. Walicek

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus

Abstract:

Careful consideration of the concept of freedom is crucial to the notion of abolition democracy and the narratives and educational projects it nurtures. This presentation examines the legacies of slavery, abolition, and poetry within Caribbean contexts and beyond, emphasizing their role as episodes of memory and theoretical tools that help to reshape contemporary narratives. It juxtaposes these historical legacies with testimonies about bondage and freedom from former Guantánamo Bay prisoners and writers from the region, including W.E.B. Dubois, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Earl Lovelace, among others. 

Bio:

Don E. Walicek is Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras Campus, where he currently serves as Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies. He earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology and an MA in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds an MFA in poetry from New York University’s Writers Workshop in Paris and was awarded his PhD in English from the University of Puerto Rico. His publications include Guantánamo and American Empire: The Humanities Respond (2018) and an issue of the Caribbean Studies journal Sargasso titled,“Guantánamo: What’s Next?,”both of which he co-edited with Jessica Adams. In 2019, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Karl-Franzens University of Graz and a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. In 2023, he offered the Annual Emancipation Lecture in the Valley, Anguilla.