The Eric
Williams Memorial Collection
________________________________________________________________________________________________
P.O. Box 561631, Miami, Fl 33256-1631, USA*Tel:
305-271-7246*Cell: 305-905-9999*Fax:
305-271-4160
Eleventh Annual FIU Eric
Williams Lecture Touts a New Vision for the Caribbean
MIAMI,
Fla.
(October 27, 2009)— The 11th
Annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture at Florida International University
will take place on Friday, November 6, 2009 at 6:30 p.m., as part of FIU’s
African & African Diaspora Studies Program. As current events demand new
prescriptions for emerging countries, this year’s Distinguished Africana
Scholars Lecture, “A New Vision for A New World Reality:
Prospects for the Anglophone Caribbean,” promises to address critical
issues of sustainable development for the region with a vibrant discussion
of the implications for
contemporary times.
Former Jamaican Prime
Minister and current Leader of the Opposition Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller will be
the featured speaker at the
Wertheim
Performing
Arts
Center, Modesto A.
Maidique campus, 11200 Southwest
Eighth Street, Miami, Florida. Admission is free and open to the
public.
Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller became
Jamaica’s first woman Prime Minister on March
30, 2006, having served seventeen years as a senior Cabinet Minister for Labor
and Welfare – among her many other portfolios. She
was conferred with the “Order of the
Nation” on May 29, 2006. Mrs. Simpson
Miller is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international
network of current and former women Presidents and Prime Ministers whose mission
is to mobilize action on critical women’s issues.
In March 2007, she was awarded the International Olympic Committee’s
World “Women and Sport” Trophy for her outstanding dedication to women in
Jamaican sport – both as athletes and administrators.
The leading architect of Jamaica’s Master
Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development, Mrs. Simpson Miller has been tireless
in promoting and strengthening urban renewal and community development, leading
to fundamental reforms in local government.
Established in 1999, the Lecture honors the
distinguished Caribbean statesman Eric E. Williams, first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and head of
government for a quarter of a century until his death in 1981. He led the country to
Independence
from Britain
in 1962 and onto Republicanism in 1976. A consummate academic and historian, and
author of several books, Dr. Williams is best known for his groundbreaking work,
the 65-year-old Capitalism and Slavery, which has been translated into
seven languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese and soon-to-be, Korean.
Urdu and Hindi editions are also planned.
Popularly referred to as The Williams Thesis, this landmark text
continues to inform today's ongoing
debate and remains “years ahead of its time…this profound critique is still the
foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development,” according to
the New York Times.
Among prior Eric Williams
Memorial Lecture speakers have been:
the late John Hope Franklin, one of America’s premier historians of the
African-American experience; Kenneth Kaunda, former President of the Republic of
Zambia; Hon. Cynthia Pratt, Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas; Hon. Mia
Mottley, Attorney General of Barbados; Beverly Anderson-Manley, former First
Lady of Jamaica; the celebrated civil rights activist Angela Davis; and
prize-winning Haitian author Edwige Danticat.
The Lecture, which seeks to
provide an intellectual forum for the examination of pertinent issues in
Caribbean and African Diaspora history and politics, is co-sponsored by:
the Caribbean Consular Corps (Miami);
Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs; Delancyhill, P.A.; Diane
Galloway’s Herbal Gardens, Inc.; FIU: College of Arts and Sciences, School of
International and Public Affairs, AADS Graduate Students’ Association, Caribbean
Students’ Association, Council of Student Organizations, Latin American and
Caribbean Center, National Society of Black Engineers, Ruth K. and Shepard Broad
International Lecture Series, Student Government Association, Women’s Studies,
Women’s Studies Graduate Students’ Association; Jaskq Creations; Joy’s Roti
Delight; Trinidad & Tobago Diaspora, Inc.
The Lecture is also
supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection at the University of the West
Indies (Trinidad and Tobago
campus), which was inaugurated by former
U.S. Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998. It was named to
UNESCO’s prestigious
Memory of the World Register in
1999.
Books by Eric
Williams will be available for purchase and signing at the Lecture. For more information, please contact
305-348-6860/271-7246 or africana@fiu.edu.
- EWMC -