To coincide with Cedar Lewisohn’s solo exhibition earlier this year, Patois Banton, join us for a free online talk by Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson entitled Questioning Language and Knowledge: The Challenge to Creole-speaking Communities. This will be followed by a Q&A with Ramisha Rafique.
This event follows on from an in conversation with Cedar Lewisohn, Ioney Smallhorne and Honey Williams which can be watched here.
“That children learn best in their mother language, has been known for several decades. However, the application has been very slow in societies where the mother language of the majority is a Creole language. This is due to what I refer to as an epistemological blind spot emerging from what colonial and neo-colonial education determine to be (real) knowledge, and how those ideological systems designate the languages that are the vehicles of ‘real’ knowledge.
Given their historic low status, Creole languages like Jamaican, Haitian Creole, Barbadian, are therefore not seen as proper receptacles of knowledge. In an attempt to unpack the philosophy of language that drives this state of affairs, I explore the historical roots of these views, and the ways in which they undermine and stunt the production, dissemination, and development of indigenous forms of knowledge.” – Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson, Coordinator, Jamaican Language Unit
FORMATIONS is a public events series which foregrounds under-represented artists, writers, thinkers, and activists, run by NTU’s Postcolonial Studies Centre and Bonington Gallery.
Click here to reserve your spot at this free online event.
Biographies:
Dr. Joseph T. Farquharson is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at The University of the West Indies, Mona. Dr. Farquharson holds B.A. in Linguistics and Spanish and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from UWI, and an M.Phil. in European Literature (Spanish) from the University of Cambridge. He has been serving as the Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) since August 2019 and is currently a member of the Communication & Information Advisory Committee of the Jamaica National Commission for UNESCO, and the Convenor of the subject panel for CAPE Communication Studies.
Ramisha Rafique is a PhD studentship funded PhD candidate at Nottingham Trent University. Her creative-critical doctoral thesis explores the ontology of the postcolonial flâneuse, considering class, language, religion, and global technological advancements. Her research interests include Islamophobia, British Muslim women’s writing, and flânerie.