The Society of Virgin Islands Historians has recruited an
international panel of scholars to make presentations at its annual
conference slated for 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 17. The
conference, which is open to the public, will be held in the
Northwest Wing of the Great Hall on the University of the Virgin
Islands St. Croix campus with a videoconference link to the
first-floor conference room in UVI's Administration and Conference
Center on the St. Thomas campus.
It is co-sponsored by the University's Division of Humanities and
Social Sciences.
The 2009 presenting scholars will make 30-minute presentations, with slides, and will answer questions on their topics. The scholars are:
- Bolette Blaagaard is a Danish doctoral student studying cultural journalism at the University of Utrecht. Her presentation is titled "Historical Memory of a former Danish Colony: the U.S. Virgin Islands."
- Professor Jeffrey B. Perry is a recent Columbia University Press-commissioned biographer of Virgin Islander Hubert Harrison. His presentation will be on Harrison, a distinguished figure in the Harlem Renaissance period.
- Professor Jalil Sued-Badillo is the 2003 UNESCO-commissioned editor of the General History of the Caribbean (Vol. 1). He will present "Indigenous Island Societies: Were There Caribs at Columbus' Arrival?"
- Ronald Lockhart is president of the St. Thomas Friends of Denmark Society. He will present "The Nascent Provenance of a Danish West Indian Postcard Collection."
For more information, contact the Society of Virgin Islands Historians President Edgar Lake at 773-1095 or Dr. Aletha Baumann at 692-4178.