Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, I argue that the standard media narratives about the production and distribution of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" reinforced a number of inaccuracies and misperceptions about the operations of the contemporary media industries. These stories constructed certain dichotomies between "Hollywood" and "independent" which obscured the interconnectedness and fluidity existing within the contemporary film and television industries.

This paper consists of two parts. First, I survey three dominant "claims" made in mainstream publications about the film. In this section, I complicate assertions that the film can be labeled as the “most successful independent film of all time”; I challenge the assumption that film such as “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” are rarely made by Hollywood anymore; and I problematize declarations that the film represents a triumph in “grassroots” marketing tactics.

Second, I propose that the film's extraordinary financial success should not be interpreted as evidence that Hollywood has lost its way, but rather as proof of the existence - and effectiveness - of specific business practices and aesthetic parameters within the contemporary media industries. Ultimately, I encourage media analysts to cease from viewing "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" as an example of one woman and one film defying the odds. Instead, we should consider the film as an example of the uniformity of journalistic discourses, the complexity of the operations of contemporary Hollywood, and the continuing ideological power of the so-called American dream.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The abolition of slavery in the British West Indies in 1834 led to a debate over the future of those colonies in which Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, Anthony Trollope, Charles Kingsley, and James Anthony Froude provided justifications for colonial rule based either on a historical or racial claim to dominance or on notions of trusteeship. John Jacob Thomas, a Trinidadian schoolteacher, was the first black West Indian to respond to this discourse in his rebuttal of Froude’s Bow of Ulysses. The writings of Carlyle, Trollope, Kingsley and Froude present a negrophobic vision of the political future. Mill’s more negrophile approach still contains patronising assumptions. Thomas stands out as a precursor to twentieth century Creole Nationalist ideas in the West Indies.

Publication Type: Abstract
Abstract: This paper begins with an overview of how the evolution of rural economies in north eastern Jamaica was precipitated by global economic forces and dynamics. The author explores the subsequent formation of social and cultural systems that shaped collective conceptions of identity and social interactions in the context of two waves of globalization.

The author then focuses on how specific export and domestic market crops defined the economy and land distribution in the first wave of globalization. The paper then assesses the effect of the second wave of globalization on use of natural resources and livelihoods among small farmers and their families in north eastern Jamaica.

Special attention is devoted to changes in the agricultural economy and related changes in the socio-cultural fabric of people and their families in the region as unexpected and unintended consequences of advancing globalization.

Finally, the paper emphasizes some of the opportunities and policy tenets that are necessary to capture benefits of globalization that will bring creative and practical economic and social change to the region.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Little research explores whether and how the appreciation of music can be characterized as utopian. Even less research, if any, goes further by studying whether music-related social movements are utopian. This paper tries to fill these gaps by studying the links between recorded music, utopia, and everyday life. More specifically, the paper explores the indie rock subculture/movement of the early 1980s to today as a utopian movement. The paper starts with a review of the role of music in everyday life, followed by a description of the indie rock movement, and an overview of Ernst Bloch’s work on utopia. The author draws from his ethnographic work in the indie rock scene, the “grand” and production of culture approaches, and other literature to apply various theories to the indie rock movement. It is concluded that the indie rock movement is utopian and further work is suggested on the genesis and routinization of this movement.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I explore the role of trade in the development of capitalism by looking at the effects of the East Indies trade on economic development in England and the rise of capitalism. I argue that the importance of the English East Indies trade lies in the fact that it played a significant role in the economic development of England and in the historically-contingent institutionalization of capitalism, which was itself a historically-embedded explanation of economic growth. The argument proceeds in three stages. The local autonomy granted to English traders in the East allowed expansion of overseas trade past the limitations imposed by the organization of other firms and partnerships. The expansion of the EIC overseas trade put the English into a position of global economic and political hegemony at the onset of the industrial revolution. The expansion of overseas trade was linked in the minds of contemporaries to economic and political expansion. In order to pursue further economic and political expansion Britain promoted overseas trade. In order to promote the expansion of trade, the British government began to use its political power to export a capitalist ideology to non-European countries.