ABSTRACT Title of Document: ON THE B-SIDE: A DUB APPROACH TO DEFINING A CARIBBEAN LITERARY IDENTITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY DIASPORA Isis N. Semaj, Doctor of Philosophy, 2013 Directed by: Professor Merle Collins, Department of English Drawing from Jamaica’s socio-politically distinct dub musical genre, “On the B: Side” argues that the literary aesthetics of Caribbean migration and history can be analyzed according to a model of dub. As I define it, the dub aesthetic is marked by erasures, repairs, re-invention, and re-creation. It is thematically and formally captured in migration and represented in the experience of dislocation and home(lessness), memory and the layering of time, political silences and cultural amplification, and the distinct social climate associated with the 21st century push toward celebrating diasporic communities and marking progress through globalization. Given these contemporary circumstances, the Caribbean subject at home locally and at home in the diaspora necessarily demonstrates an acute investment in memory recall and a strong motivation toward building cultural posterity. This dissertation, therefore, explicates how the more recent literature reaches back in new ways that facilitate the survival of a uniquely Caribbean literary identity into the future. This dissertation analyzes works by Ramabai Espinet, Edwidge Danticat, and Anthony Winkler to highlight the ways in which relocation and dislocation intersect for the Caribbean subject. Additionally, I examine works by Marion Patrick Jones and Diana McCaulay, who represent another category of unbelonging and homelessness in the Caribbean that is read in the middle class’s exclusion from national and regional discourse on authenticity. Interrogating the space of Caribbean fiction, the dissertation moves through the deconstruction and reinvention of migration to arrive at the diasporic intersections of erasure, rupture, and repair. This is the bedrock of the dub aesthetic. United under dub and utilizing both literary critique and social historiography, my choice to analyze these Caribbean texts acknowledges a particular kind of intra- Caribbean identification that occurs particularly in the diaspora and has implications, too, for their study of the Caribbean at home and abroad. While paying respect to Derek Walcott’s pronouncement that colonialism is the common ground of the New World, my dub approach moves beyond a joint postcolonial identification to an interrogation of the overlapping histories and social realities present in the contemporary Caribbean diaspora. ON THE B SIDE A DUB APPROACH TO DEFINING A CARIBBEAN LITERARY IDENTITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY DIASPORA By Isis Nailah Semaj Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 Advisory Committee: Professor Merle Collins, Chair Professor Cordell Black Professor Zita Nunes Professor Barry Pearson Professor Michelle V. Rowley © Copyright Isis Nailah Semaj 2013 Acknowledgements This dissertation has resided within me from the beginning. It is the drum and bass that I heard but did not recognize in my first encounter with Paule Marshall, Michelle Cliff, Sam Selvon, Thomas Glave, and the world of writers who wrote of the places and people that I knew. For introducing me to a body of literature that is my past, present, and future, I am forever indebted to Drs. Colin Dayan and Joseph Clarke. Thank you both. To my committee of exceptional scholars and to the friends I made along the way, I hold you in the highest regard. Dr. Merle Collins, as chair of my dissertation and champion of my dreams, I am in awe of your creative energy, your brilliant scholarship, and your tireless mentorship. For you, my gratitude is bottomless. Thank you. Dr. Zita Nunes, you are style and grace and I thank you for supporting my scholarship and shaping my teaching practices. I am grateful to have you in my corner. Dr. Barry Pearson, your welcoming nature gave me confidence not only to explore reggae and dancehall lyrics, but also to explore the critical spaces in-between the lyrics. Thank you for being my musical soundboard for much of my graduate school career. Dr. Michelle V. Rowley, your positively sharp criticism reminded me that scholarship, especially the dissertation writing process, is always ever dialogic. Thank you for residing in my ear. Dr. Cordell Black, your pride in me and belief in my work sought me through many a slow writing week. Thank you for your spirit and thank you for letting me into your life. I appreciate you dearly. Dr. Dorith Grant-Wisdom, you are a relentless and resilient scholar and I thank you for lending me your time and your abundant knowledge of the ii region. And to Manju Suri, my first advocate at the University, thank you for every conversation that ended in you saying, resoundingly, “I know you can do it!” Your encouraging words meant more than you know. To my sisters, Njeri and Naita, thank you for being my fairy godmothers and thank you for making me laugh and feel light when the work became heavy. To my brothers, Mandela and Hasani, thank you for being my link to Jamaican popular culture when I needed a break from the literature. To my husband, Michael, thank you for the Burning Spear concert, the Damian Marley show, and the King Tubby sound files. Our reggae research road-trip to see Dubtonic Kru is the highlight of my graduate experience. And thank you for sacrificing sleep to help me transcribe Mutabaruka lyrics deep into the night. You are my heart song. To Anita Baksh, Nina Candia, Desiree Moore, and Anna Steed, you are more than friends to me. Thank you for your love, humor, and support. And to my sweet girls – Aminah - my rose, Safiyah - my grace, and Zahra - my light – you are everything to me. I missed you when I wrote in the daylight and you made me miss my writing when you kept me up at night. I love you eternally. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to my maternal grandmother, Rosamond Booker. For always reading and writing and for always encouraging reading and writing, you planted the seeds. Thank you. I dedicate this dissertation to my maternal grandfather, William Booker. To this day, oral or scribal, no one tells a story quite like you do. Thank you. I dedicate this dissertation to my father, Dr. Leahcim Semaj, and my paternal grandparents, Agnes Blake and Vincent James. Despite the geography, your love and that blessed nation are always in my heart. Thank you. And, lastly, I dedicate this dissertation to my mother, Rraine Semaj. Many of these pages could not have been iii written without you. Thank you for enrolling me in Saturday typing classes when I was twelve years old. Thank you for spending weeks at a time in Maryland taking care of the girls while I wrote. And thank you for being my absolute motivation. Because of you, I can, I did, and I will. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………… ii Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………. v Chapter One: Introduction: A Dub Approach …………………………………. 1 Chapter Two: Employing the Mixer: Caribbean Migrations and Dub Mut(e)ations ………………….... 23 Chapter Three: Recollect, Relive, Reverb: Dubbing the Dialectic between History and the Sea ……………. 54 Chapter Four: Babylon System Dub: Privilege and Its Consequences…………... 93 Chapter Five: Conclusion: Advancing the Dub …………………………………. 146 Notes ……………………………………………………………………………... 161 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………… 167 v Chapter One Introduction: This Dub Approach “All of this [literature] produces a sense of celebration … that is, a sense that West Indians/ Caribbeans have the ability to ‘refashion’ themselves, constitute new ‘selves’ or ‘identities’ which effectively negotiate the challenges of a generally hostile metropolitan space.” -- Curdella Forbes, From Nation to Diaspora “Jamaica […] provided in its music a template for cultural reconfiguration [and] reinterpretations. [And this] cultural ‘remix’ is central to the Caribbean cultural experience.” -- Michael Veal, Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Sounds in Jamaican Reggae In a film and musical context one might think of the word “dub” as a verb used in the technical sense to describe an altered audio recording. For example, a film’s sound engineer might “dub over” or “dub out” one voice with another voice, effectively erasing one voice and re-recording in its place another. In the Jamaican musical context, which is the context that shapes the dub approach delineated in this discussion, “dub” is a musical category all its own. Born from reggae, dub music, dub plates, and dub specials, are the altered re-recordings of familiar songs and salutes. The traditional Jamaican dub is a recording pressed on to the B-side of a vinyl record and serves as an altered, alternate production of the A-side pressed recording. In more literary terms, the B-side dub is derivative, a reconstruction of the deconstructed A-side recording meant to emphasize some elements and mute out others while always maintaining the integrity of the original. This dissertation, “On the B-Side,” takes its title from this musical setting. And the dub aesthetic referenced here takes its name from this distinct music because, as ethnomusicologist Michael Veal notes in the preceding epigraph, “Jamaica provided in its 1 music a template for cultural reconfiguration [and] reinterpretations. [And this] cultural ‘remix’ is central to the Caribbean experience” (Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Sounds in Jamaican Reggae 217). By the accident of birth dub is Jamaican, but the applicability of a dub aesthetic has no such navel string (umbilical cord)1 limitations. Its re-configurative and re- interpretive qualities mark dub as uniquely appropriate for part (national) to whole (regional and diasporic) extrapolation, more so than other locally-mined literary aesthetics like reggae, soca, and calypso. Indeed as the direct relative of reggae, dub music – even with (or perhaps because of) its muted lyrics, haunting melodies, and amplified bass lines – shares reggae’s capacity to connect with people beyond its production borders.