Jane Bryce (University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados)
Submitted: Tue, 27 Apr 2004 17:38:58 -0400
Dr. Jane Bryce
University of the West Indies
Faculty of Humanities
Cave Hill
Barbados
phone: 246 417 4390
e-mail: jbryce@uwichill.edu.bb
Web site for Film Festival: http://humanities.uwichill.edu.bb/filmfestival/
Since joining Cave Hill in 1992, I have had responsibility for the Department's offerings
in the area of African Literature, as well as teaching courses on the novel, poetry,
literature of the colonial encounter, creative writing and feminist theory /women's writing.
Although not a specialist, I cover Caribbean litearture and film in a number of the courses
I teach, especially at graduate level.
I have taught Creative Writing: Fiction since 1997, a workshop based course designed to
equip students with the skills for writing short fiction, some of which finds its way
into Poui: the Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing.
Together with two other colleagues, I have been involved in the initiative to expand
the opportunities for creative writing at Cave Hill. This has included summer workshops
in prose fiction and poetry led by well known Caribbean writers, Erna Brodber (prose) and
Lorna Goodison (poetry) in 1998, Olive Senior (prose) and Grace Nichols (poetry) in 1999,
and Kendel Hipployte (poetry) and Merle Collins (prose) in 2001. I have also brought writers
such as Gabriel Gbadamosi (poet, UK)), Niyi Osundare (poet, Nigeria), Colin Channer (romance
fiction writer, Jamaica), as well as locally resident writers, to the campus.
Since its inception in 1999, I have been on the editorial board of Poui: the Cave Hill
Journal of Creative Writing.
Research and related activities:
My research interests combine the areas of popular culture, feminist theory and what I call
'unofficial writing' - writing which, for various reasons, does not fall within the ambit of
canonical literature (either because it is deemed to be 'popular fiction' because of
its genre, eg romance fiction, or because it is published, distributed and consumed away from
the metropolitan centres), and, most recently, film. I am currently working on a collection of
essays linking contemporary fiction, film and popular culture in Africa and the Caribbean. I am
working on establishing Cave Hill as a regional archive, distribution and research centre for
African, Caribbean and Latin Film. While continuing to write on African and Caribbean writing in
general and women's writing in particular, my latest research focus is on the relevance of film
to postcolonial studies. I am working on the development of film studies as part of the Creative Arts
degree at Cave Hill.
Barbados Festival of African and Caribbean Film: I am currently co-director of the Festival,
held in October 2002 for the first time, and again 15-19 October 2003, featuring prominent African and
Caribbean film-makers. (The web-site may be visited through a link from the Faculty web-site:
http://humanities.uwichill.edu.bb/
Publications:
a) Book Contributions
Chapter on Nigeria: Women's Travel Writing (Harrap Columbus, 1990).
Special introduction to Nigerian section: The Rough Guide to West Africa (Harrap Columbus, 1990).
Motherhood as a metaphor for creativity in the novels of Bessie Head, Rebeka Njau & Flora Nwapa':
Motherlands, ed. Susheila Nasta (Women's Press, 1991), 200-218.
West Africa section (francophone & anglophone): Bloomsbury International Guide to Women's Writing.
ed. Clare Buck (Bloomsbury 1992), 200-210 + reference entries.
`White Child, Black Nation': Unbecoming Daughters of the Empire, ed. Anna Rutherford (Dangaroo, 1993),
63-70.
`Another Otherness: Writing by African Women Writers': A Sense of Difference ed. Marit Berge &
Anne Holden Ronning (Senter for Humanistic Kvinneforskning, University of Bergen, 1991), 75-84.
Writing as Power in the Narratives of African Women Writers' in: Into the Nineties: Post-Colonial
Women's Writing, ed. Anna Rutherford, Shirley Chew & Lars Jensen (Dangaroo Press, 1994), 618-624.
`Reformulating the language of love: a world of Caribbean romance,' in Framing the Word: Gender &
Genre in Caribbean Women's Writing, ed. Joan Anim Addo (Whiting & Birch Ltd, 1996) 108-127.
'Popular fiction in Africa,' in Writing and Africa, eds, Mpalive Msiska and Paul Hyland (Longman, 1997),
174-192.
Women and modern Africa popular fiction,' in Readings in African Popular Culture ed. Karin Barber
(Indiana University Press/James Currey, 1997), 118-124.
'A life on the women's page: Treena Kwenta's diary' in Writing African women: gender, popular culture and
literature in West Africa ed, Stephanie Newell, (Zed Books, 1997), 47-66.
`Evading canonical constraints: the `popular' as an alternative mode - the case of Flora Nwapa': Emerging
Perspectives on Flora Nwapa, ed, Marie Umeh (Africa World Press, 1998), 391-410.
'Young t'ing is the name of the game': Sexual Dynamics in a Caribbean Romantic Fiction Series, in Caribbean
Portraits: Essays on Gender Ideologies & Identities, ed. Christine Barrow ( Ian Randle, 1998), 332-338.
`Inside/Out: body & sexuality in Dambudzo Marechera's fiction, 'in A Reader in Dambudzo Marechera, eds,
Flora Veit-Wild and Anthony Chennels (Africa World Press, 1999), 221-234.
'Textual deviancy and cultural syncretism: romantic fiction as a subversive strain in Africana women's writing',
with Kari Dako, in Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature, eds. Janice Liddell and Yakini Kemp
(University Press of Florida, 1999), 219-229.
Joint editor with John Conteh-Morgan and Daniel Gover of African Literature Association annual, No 6:
The Postcolonial Condition of African Literature (Africa World Press, 2000).
'"Young t'ing is the name of the game": sexual dynamics in a Caribbean romantic fiction series', Gender and
Consumer Culture Reader, ed. Jennifer Scanlon (New York University Press, 2000), 283-298.
'Textual deviancy and cultural syncretism: romantic fiction as a subversive strain in black women's writing',
with Kari Dako, in FonTomFrom: Contemporary Ghanaian Literature, Theater and Film, eds Kofi Anyidoho and James
Gibbs (Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam-Atlanta, 2000), 136-155.
Short story: 'Masquerade', in Kiss and Quarrel: Yoruba/English: Strategies of Mediation, ed. Stewart Brown,
Birmingham University African Studies Series No 5, Centre of West African Studies, 2000, 203-207.
'Imaginary Snapshots: cinematic techniques in the writing of Yvonne Vera', and 'Survival is in the mouth':
Interview with Zimbabwean novelist, Yvonne Vera, in Sign and Taboo: Perspectives on the Poetic Prose of Yvonne
Vera, eds. Mandi Taruvinga and Robert Muponde, Weaver Press, 2002, Zimbabwe. 39-56.
"'Courier with a live coal in his running palm' ('Midlife'): Niyi Osundare as witness to the human in Nigerian
public life." In The People's Poet: Emerging Perspectives on Niyi Osundare. Ed. Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah. Trenton:
Africa World Press, 2002. 115-131.
'"What have we to celebrate?" gender, genre and identity in two popular cultural texts.' In Confronting Power,
Theorising Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean, ed Eudine Barriteau. University of the West
Indies Press: 2003. 189-205.
b) Journal articles:
`Politics & Literature in Nigeria,' in Notre Librairie, special issue: 'Au-dela du prix Nobel': Colloque de
Lagos sur les Litteratures Africaines,' No. 98, July/September, 1989, pp 71-75.
`Conflict & contradiction in women's writing on the Nigerian civil war,' in African Languages & Cultures,
Vol. 4, No. 1, 1991, pp. 29-42.
`Commonwealth Literature' (essay) in Wasafiri, Spring 1990, No. 11, p.3.
`In Search of Women's Writing,' in Southern African Review of Books, July - Oct, 1991, pp.5-6.
`Inventing Autobiography: Some Examples from Fiction & Journalism by Nigerian Women Writers,' in Aspects of
Commonwealth Literature (ICS, 1992), pp. 53-60.
`Romantic fiction as a subversive strain in black women's writing' with Kari Dako (University of Ghana, Legon),
Wasafiri, 1993, No.17, Spring 10-14. Also forthcoming in Matatu: special issue on Ghanaian writing (eds. James Gibbs
and Kofi Anyidoho); and in Arms Akimbo: Africana Women in Contemporary Literature, eds. Janice Liddell and Yakini
Kemp Clark, (Atlanta University).
Review of Power, Marginality & African Oral Literature, eds. G. Furniss & K. Barber (CUP, 1995) in African
Affairs, Vol. 96, No.383, April 1997, 284-6.
`The self you did not have to lose': a reading of Salt by Earl Lovelace & The Counting House by David Dabydeen,
in Wasafiri, No.26, Autumn 1997, 83-85.
Review: Buxton Spice and Cereus Blooms at Night, in Wasafiri, No. 30, Autumn 1999, 72-3.
Review: West African Popular Theatre, by K. Barber, J. Collins and A. Ricard, in Interventions, Vol 2 (1),
2000, 149-151.
Review: White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Orange Laughter by Leone Ross, Wasafiri No 33, Spring 2001, 79-81. .
Film review: The Life and Times of Sarah Baartmann: the Hottentot Venus for African Studies Review, Vol 44, No 1,
April 2001, 130-133.
c) On -line academic journals and websites, and recent journalism:
'Postmodern traditionalism in Ben Okri's The Famished Road', on the BBC's Windrush Website, under the title:
'Black Britain: the Essential List', featuring fourteen of the most important novels by African or West Indian
writers in Britain: May 1998.
"Going home is another story": Constructions of Nation and Gender in Ama Ata Aidoo's Changes', in West Africa
Review (1999), http://www.westafricareview.com/ (6 pages).
'Yarico: staging slavery in 1999', in Caribbean Beat Nov/Dec 1999, 56-63.
'Niyi Osundare': Sunday Advocate, 12 March, 2000, 13 (1000 words).
'Back to the Future' (feature on Niyi Osundare), in Caribbean Beat July/Aug 2000, 60-61.
'Peter Abrahams: a view of his own', Caribbean Beat July-August 2003, pp
d) Forthcoming...
'"That is not for beke": global versus local in two film versions of Sargasso', in Culture and Globalisation
in the Caribbean, ed. Keith Nurse, UWI St Augustine.
'He said, she said: gender and the metanarrative of Nigerian identity construction,' in Festschrift in honour of
Professor Izevbaye, ed. Remi Raji, University of Ibadan.
'Incendiary interpretations and the patriotic imperative: the case of Flame', in Versions of Zimbabwe, eds. Ranka
Promorac and Robert Muponde, Weaver Press, Zimbabwe.
Interview with Yvonne Vera in Interviews with African Women Writers, ed. Maureen Eke, University of Central Michigan.