Dr. Emily Zobel Marshall will be taking over the JWIL twitter feed from October 4-11, 2021 to reflect on the pioneering Jamaican poet, Jean “Binta” Breeze. There is always a strong political dimension to Jean’s work: her poetic voice called for change and resistance to the oppressive and corrosive forces of ignorance and prejudice, and she was committed to bringing her message of hope and resistance to international audiences. During this twitter residency, Emily will be tweeting about how Jean confronted gender inequality and explored black womanhood in her poetry and music. She will also focus on how Jean shaped a previously very male-dominated dub scene both in the UK and the Caribbean.
Dr. Emily Zobel Marshall is Reader in Postcolonial literatures at Leeds Beckett University. Emily’s research specialisms are Caribbean literature and Caribbean carnival cultures. She has also established a Caribbean Carnival Cultures research platform and network that aims to bring the critical, creative, academic and artistic aspects of carnival into dialogue with one another. Emily is a regular contributor to BBC radio discussions on racial politics and Caribbean culture. Her books focus on the role of the trickster in Caribbean and African American cultures: her first book, Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (2012) was published by the University of the West Indies Press and her second book, American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2019.
