June 09, 2023
The new Open Educational Resources (OER) in Caribbean Studies stipend program builds on over a decade of efforts across the dLOC network to create and share teaching resources. The Revitalizing dLOC project team was delighted to see a large number of excellent proposals this first year of this program. Many thanks to the dLOC OER Advisory Committee, who had the difficult task of selecting from such an outstanding pool of applications.
We are delighted to support open educational resources and practices within a vibrant, interdisciplinary, international, and multilingual community of scholars, educators, librarians, and students. Below, in no particular order, are the recipients for the inaugural year of our stipend program. Congratulations!
Transoceanic Cultures
Laëtitia Saint-Loubert, University College Dublin
Savrina Chinien, University of the West Indies
Saint-Loubert and Chinien will share course materials from their unique and innovative connected classrooms project examining transoceanic journeys connecting postcolonial spaces that are rarely interrogated together despite their obvious colonial linkages (Ireland-Trinidad-Mauritius).
Yon lòt ekonomi pou yon lòt Ayiti
Emilio Travieso, Université Notre Dame d’Haïti
Travieso will build upon a reference website (https://yonlotekonomi.wordpress.com/) that includes contemporary Haitian author profiles, glossary of terms, case studies that illustrate economic concepts, and blog-style discussions of specific topics designed to enrich and expand debates about economic development in Haiti, especially among Haitian university students.
Create Caribbean: Cartography & Biodiversity
Schuyler K Esprit, Create Caribbean Research Institute, Dominica State College
The Create Caribbean team will create two OER projects engaging themes of cartography and biodiversity. Emphasizing use of primary source material from dLOC, they will create student-facing interactive activities, virtual worksheets, and instructor packages consisting of background resources and bibliographies, lesson plans, and primary source sets.
Films of the Cuban Diaspora: A Podcast Series
Santiago Juan-Navarro, Florida International University
Eliecer Jiménez Almeida, Florida International University
Juan-Navarro and Jiménez Almeida will develop a podcast series about the films of the Cuban diaspora to enhance a new course covering this topic and add the pedagogical component of the Cuban Diaspora Film Archive (CDfA) project (http://cubandiasporafilmarchive.org/).
Gesta ambiental de Casa Pueblo: una cronología
Dinah M. Wilson Fraites, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras
Jeanmary Lugo González, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras
Wilson Fraites and Lugo González will develop a bilingual digital exhibit in Spanish and English to support the study of environmental justice in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The digital exhibit will highlight the Casa Pueblo Historic Archive collection in dLOC and illustrate the environmental and social movement of the Casa Pueblo organization.
The Creole Atlantic
K. Adele Okoli, University of Central Arkansas
Adele Okoli will share course materials from her immersive cultural studies course in French examining francophone literature and culture of the Creole Atlantic and highlighting Louisiana in conversation with Haiti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe.
Texaco Wiki
Jessica A. Hutchins, Southern Illinois University
The Texaco Wiki (https://iris.siue.edu/texacowiki/) is a reference website that facilitates undergraduate research on Caribbean literature and culture and supports teaching of the novel Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau. Hutchins will adapt the project for broader classroom use, with plans to develop lesson plans that engage students in research with dLOC and in writing or revising wiki articles to provide context for the novel.
Media and the Making of the Anglophone Caribbean
Lynette Mills, University of the West Indies
Mills will create a course reader exploring mass media’s role in the development of Caribbean identity in the Caribbean and the diaspora in the twentieth century.
Puerto Rico Syllabus: Vieques Section
Sarah Molinari, Florida International University
Isabel Guzzardo Tamargo, Rutgers University
Marisol LeBrón, University of California, Santa Cruz
Yarimar Bonilla, Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York
The Puerto Rico Syllabus (https://puertoricosyllabus.com/) is a digital resource that demystifies Puerto Rico’s economic crisis and shows how Puerto Ricans are fighting against austerity regimes. The PRS team will develop a bilingual section dedicated to the island municipality of Vieques, collaborating with dLOC partner institution Archivo Histórico de Vieques and promoting visibility of their collections.
Decolonize Haitian Studies Syllabus
Natália Marques da Silva, Stetson University
The Haitian Studies Association will leverage dLOC collections and HSA’s growing Open Access collection to develop a multilingual syllabus and accompanying materials (lesson plan, teacher guide) that examine roots and impacts of coloniality.
We are a Raizal People
Sharika Crawford, United States Naval Academy
Crawford will create a digital exhibit with educational modules tentatively titled “We are a Raizal People” that traces the history of the original inhabitants on the Colombian Islands of San Andrés and Providencia in the twentieth century.
Decolonial Cartography
Rafael V. Capó García, University of British Columbia
Memoria (De)colonial is a non-profit organization dedicated to rethinking colonial heritage sites and historical narratives. The proposed projects will contextualize primary source data sets and provide readings, lesson plans, and activity sheets that interrogate and utilize colonial heritage sites in the classroom.
Desplazamientos: Las escritoras puertorriqueñas y el lenguaje
Carmen M. Rivera Villegas, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Mayagüez
Rocío Luque Colautti, Universidad de Trieste
In this first edition of the OER, Rivera Villegas and Luque Colautti will share a series of educational modules and Spanish language learning activities that make use of the letters, poems, and texts of the Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos.
“We are not extinct!” Taíno culture and survivance in the past, present and future
Isabel Espinal, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Espinal will share course materials and research tools and methods from her course examining how knowledge about Taíno culture thrived but was also threatened by violence, the myth of extinction, and “paper genocide.”
What is the Caribbean?
Medardo Gabriel Rosario, Florida International University
Alexander S. Butler, Bowling Green State University
Gabriel Rosario and Butler will create a set of multilingual training curricula in Spanish, French and English to support teacher candidates’ engagement with dLOC and other archival collections. Centering on the compelling question “what is the Caribbean?,” each unit will consist of inquiry-based lesson plans that model for teacher candidates how to build evidence-based responses to questions, conduct research, and explore themes such as indigeneity, enslavement, and resistance.
