"Dis poem is still not written." A Study of Diamesic Variation in Jamaican Dub Poetry

International audience; This paper looks at diamesic variation in the works of Jamaican and Anglo-Jamaican dub poets such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah and Mutabaruka. Dub poetry constitutes a turning point in the history of literature in Creole, since the genre achieved to establish Patwa as the legitimate medium for Caribbean writers, thereby effectively inverting (post)colonial linguistic hierarchies. Though closely associated with the reggae tradition, dub poets have always claimed to be doing “real” literature and published their work in written form as well as in audio or video recordings. The paper analyses various strategies to inscribe orality and orature in written t…

"Rebel Music": Reggae's Revolutionary Ethos

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The Roots and Routes of Reggae: Textual, Cultural and Physical Mobility in Jamaican Popular Music

Critical approaches to cultural identities in the public sphere: Assessing and reducing the gap between academic and public discourses

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"Dis poem shall call names names": Naming in reggae culture, the example of dub poetry

International audience; The question of names and naming emerged as a crucial concern in the cultures of the African diaspora as a way to resist the anonymity and loss of identity imposed upon slaves. Through examples taken from reggae culture and the subgenre known as dub poetry, this paper looks at how names imply a political and poetic use of language in black Atlantic cultures.

“A Modern Slave Song:” Reggae Music and the Memory of Slavery

International audience; From early ska tunes to modern-day dancehall sounds, Jamaican popular music has been a privileged site for the re/creation and transmission of a communal memory of slavery, within Jamaican society itself but also in the broader context of the African and Afro-Caribbean diasporas. The lyrics of reggae songs constitute a vast textual repertoire where a predominantly oral discourse on slavery is produced and circulated, mostly outside institutional circles. In such texts, slavery serves as a memorial matrix which fosters a sense of identity, community and resistance for Afro-Caribbean people around the world. This chapter examines a corpus of 250 song lyrics dedicated t…

‘Word Sound Have Power’: Poetics and Politics in Afro-Caribbean Poetry and Popular Music

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ʺDis poem is still not writtenʺ: A study of diamesic variation in Afro‐Caribbean oraliterary poetry

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« It Dread Inna Inglan », une chronique des luttes des Antillais au Royaume-Uni dans les poèmes de Linton Kwesi Johnson

International audience; Linton Kwesi Johnson, dit LKJ, chanteur, poète et musicien de reggae s’est affirmé depuis les années 1960 comme un artiste noir de premier plan en Angleterre. Né en 1952 en Jamaïque, LKJ arrive à Londres parmi les dizaines de milliers d’immigrants antillais qui s’installent au Royaume-Uni à partir de l’après-guerre. Dans un contexte social tendu, marqué par le racisme et les violences policières auxquels font face les Antillais, LKJ développe une nouvelle forme d’expression artistique entre musique et poésie : la « dub poetry ». Ce faisant, il devient le porte-voix des luttes des Noirs pour leur reconnaissance au sein de la société britannique.

Reggae Outernational: Borders and Trans/National Identity in Jamaican Popular Music

International audience; The history of post-1945 Jamaican popular music is one of constantly changing borders. Despite efforts on the part of the Jamaican state to turn reggae into Jamaica’s exclusively national music and a tourist attraction, reggae and its related subgenres remain to this day a minority culture of the underground, in Jamaica itself and in the many places around the world where it is produced and performed. Recent research on the history of Jamaican popular music suggests that it cannot easily be contained within strictly national borders. Reggae can rather be seen as a focal point around which an incipient alter/native, working-class Jamaican identity is built, both insid…

Doing (No) Good? Specialist and non-Specialist Perspectives on Applied Interculturalism

International audience; While academics may question the ethical underpinnings of the contact hypothesis and the othering discourse it may promote, many non-specialists are unaware both of this debate and of associated questions of cultural relativism and ethnocentrism. In the context of an ongoing research project working with local migrant-support associations in Dijon, France, looking into formal and informal cultural awareness training for refugees and asylum seekers, this paper, based on interview data, will critically analyse the differing visions of the figure of “good interculturalist” and various implicit or explicit, purportedly ethically laudable motives of different parties invo…

“Don’t Call Us Immigrants”: The Musical and Political Legacy of Reggae in the UK

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“Silence in Our Screams”: The Aesthetics Of Silence in Dub and Reggae Poetry

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Bass Culture: The Politics of Authenticity in the World of Jamaican Sound Systems

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“Sometimes I Wanda/Who Will Translate/Dis/Fe de Inglish?” Strategies for Transcribing Jamaican Creole in the Dub Poems of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah

International audience; The question of dialect has always been central to Caribbean literature, and more specifically to poetry. In a (post)colonial context of diglossia between standard English and Jamaican Creole, and of a strong hierarchy between oral and scribal forms of linguistic and literary expression, the mere possibility of writing ‘real’ literature in Patwa was severely contested until quite recently. Yet, an increasing number of poets have experimented with Creole over the course of the last century and have amply demonstrated that it is a legitimate medium for poetic and literary expression.This paper looks at various strategies employed by Anglo-Jamaican dub poets Linton Kwes…

Temperature-Induced Structural Transitions in the Gallium-Based MIL-53 Metal–Organic Framework

We report a structural and thermodynamic investigation of the phase behavior of Ga(OH,F)-MIL-53, a gallium-based metal–organic framework (MOF) having the MIL-53 topology containing 0.7 wt % fluorine bonded to the metal. Despite some small structural differences, especially for the hydrated form, the overall physical chemistry behavior of Ga(OH,F)-MIL-53 is very similar to standard fluorine free Ga-MIL-53 material. A combination of in situ X-ray diffraction, in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and heat capacity measurements allowed us to establish that Ga(OH,F)-MIL-53 under vacuum (i.e., the empty material) exhibits two stable phases: a nonporo…

“Reggae Ambassadors”: The Growing Importance of France in Reggae’s Global Economy

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Staging American Nights : Représentations de l’intime et mises en scène de la nuit aux Amériques

Aux rêveurs noctambules de tout temps, aux « dériveurs » nocturnes, la nuit est réservoir de symboles, éveil d’un monde intérieur, souvenirs et obsessions intimes, révélation de l’inconscient, autre jubilation dionysiaque. Rêve d’encre aussi, veille des créateurs dans la nuit théophanique quand mystique de la nature et mystique intime s’y lovent : c’est la nuit obscure de St-Jean de la Croix, ténèbres de l’âme abandonnée, et la Sainte pénombre des pré-romantiques et romantiques allemands (Goë...

From Ivory Tower to Social Arena:

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Reggae Beyond Borders: Fault Lines in Jamaican Popular Music

Word Sound Have Power : enjeux éthiques dans la poésie jamaïcaine et anglo-jamaïcaine d'inspiration rastafarienne

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"Don't Call Us Immigrants": The musical and political legacy of reggae in Britain

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Water Adsorption in Flexible Gallium-Based MIL-53 Metal–Organic Framework

Understanding the adsorption of water in metal–organic frameworks (MOF), and particularly in soft porous crystals, is a crucial prerequisite before considering MOFs for industrial applications. We report here a joint experimental and theoretical study on the behavior of a gallium-based breathing MOF, Ga-MIL-53, upon water adsorption. By looking at the energetics and thermodynamics of Ga-MIL-53, we demonstrate why it behaves differently from its sibling Al-MIL-53, showing a different phase at room temperature (a nonporous phase) and the presence of a hydrated narrow-pore structure at gas saturation pressure. Moreover, we present a complete water vapor pressure vs temperature phase diagram of…

Reggae Revival: the many rebirths of Jamaican popular music

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Le reggae et les scènes musicales alternatives britanniques : influences et confluences

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Silences croisés contemporains

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Inna de Yard: Capturing the Soul of Jamaican Music

Scammer’s Yard: the crime of Black repair in Jamaica

Scammer’s Yard follows the lives of Omar, Junior and Dwayne, three Jamaican ghetto youths, as they go about their lottery scam operation in the early 2010s. The lottery scam essentially entails the...

Peuple et populisme, identité et nation. Quelle contribution à la paix ? Quelles perspectives européennes ?

Emotions, stratégies politiques et engagement citoyen

Longtemps décriées pour leur manque de rationalité, les émotions sont pourtant omniprésentes dans les débats politiques et sociétaux actuels. Alors que la sphère publique contemporaine est traversée par des clivages profonds, comment rendre compte des articulations entre émotions collectives, mobilisations politiques et participation citoyenne ? Quels sont les contextes politiques et culturels qui favorisent l'expression des émotions ? Quelle est l'influence des outils numériques dans la formation de communautés émotionnelles et dans l'émergence de nouvelles formes de contestation ? De quelle façon les stratégies d'action des collectifs citoyens intègrent-elles les émotions pour convaincre …

“Whey Mi Belang”: Borders of Class, Race and Gender in Reggae Lyrics and Afro-Caribbean Oral Texts

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From exception to rule: Dub and the birth of electronic music

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Conscious Entertainment: Commitment in the Reggae Lyrics of Clinton Fearon and Protoje

International audience; This article provides an analysis of the lyrics of Clinton Fearon and Protoje, two major figures of contemporary Jamaican popular music. They are consistently described as committed singers/songwriters and proficient lyricists in a context where reggae music and culture are seen as falling into the excesses of violence and “slackness.” A study of commitment in their respective last two albums will show that despite some contradictions, conscious reggae is still alive today.

Poet and the Roots: Authenticity in the works of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah

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