Caribbean Journeys and Colonial Legacies: A Reading of Ocean Stirrings by Merle Collins

The UCL Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slavery is delighted to announce the details of the third instalment in its Speaker Series honouring one of UCL History’s most distinguished graduates, the Guyanese historian Elsa V. Goveia.
In collaboration with the UCL Institute of the Americas and Peepal Tree Press, our special guest speaker is distinguished writer Merle Collins.

Merle Collins was born in Aruba to Grenadian parents who returned to Grenada soon after her birth. During the Grenada Revolution, she served as a coordinator for research on Latin America and the Caribbean for the Government of Grenada. She left Grenada in 1983. She is the author of three novels: Ocean Stirrings (shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and Bocas Award for Caribbean Fiction), Angel and The Colour of Forgetting, a collection of short stories: The Ladies are Upstairs, and three critically acclaimed collections of poetry. She has recently retired from teaching Caribbean Literature at the University of Maryland.
Elsa V. Goveia (1925-1980) read History (Honours) at UCL from 1945-1948. She was one of the first West Indian students to have studied in the department. While a student at UCL she won the prestigious Pollard Prize for English History in 1947. She completed her PhD from University of London in 1952 and became a distinguished historian and teacher of British slavery. For three decades she taught History at the University of the West Indies, Mona, in Jamaica, where she was responsible for a pioneering course on Caribbean History. Among her publications are A Study of the Historiography of the British West Indies and Slave Society of the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century. This speaker series in Goveia's alma mater department honours her foundational work in the study of Atlantic slavery.

You can learn more about Elsa Goveia's career, including her time in London, in this YouTube video made by the History Department at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
The event will take place at 5.00pm-6.30pm in the IAS Common Ground (Room G11) on the ground floor of UCL's South Wing. The space is step-free / wheelchair accessible. The event is free and open to the public, though advance booking is required via Eventbrite. If you have questions or access needs, please contact [email protected].

Host or Publisher Legacies of British Slavery, UCL