Location: Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (map)
Carla Martin
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Sounding Creole: The Politics of Cape Verdean Language, Music, and Diaspora
The development of the Cape Verdean Creole language has been and continues to be hindered by negative exceptionalist attitudes in both scholarly and public discourse, but the language’s widespread use and celebrated status within musical expression have simultaneously bolstered efforts toward language equality in the country. A case study based on the career of Grammy award winning singer and monolingual Creole speaker Cesária Évora, “The Barefoot Diva,” demonstrates that, despite consistent experiences of race, gender, and socioeconomic class prejudice, Cape Verdean performers and culture bearers play integral roles in sustaining and developing the use of Creole and in (re)defining what it means to be and to speak Creole.
Free and open to the public. A question and answer session will follow the lecture. Please feel free to bring a lunch.