Discourses of Creolization

Donette Francis’s Spring 2021 course Discourses of Creolization engaged “creole” and “creolization” as foundational key words in Caribbean studies. The class juxtaposed conventional definitions that privilege identities formed in the new world to methodologies that grapple with the particularities of historical moments and shaping relations of power that create conditions of possibilities or impossibilities for Black worldmaking. Applying these insights to Allied with Power: African & African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, the following essays highlight creolized forms of artmaking from abstraction to figuration.