Name Gordon Rohlehr | Role Author | |
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Books Calypso & society in pre-independence Trinidad | ||
CONVERSATIONS WITH CNEWS PROF. GORDON ROHLEHR
Gordon Rohlehr (born 20 February 1942) is a Guyana-born scholar and critic of West Indian literature, who is noted for his study of popular culture in the Caribbean, including oral poetry, calypso and cricket. He pioneered the academic and intellectual study of Calypso, tracing its history over several centuries, writing a landmark work entitled Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad (1989), and is considered the world's leading authority on its development.
Contents
Mighty Sparrow - Calypso Rivalry
Biography
Born in Guyana in 1942, Rohlehr was educated at Queen's College, Guyana, and at the University College of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, graduating in 1964 with a first-class Honours degree in English Literature. He then wrote a doctoral dissertation entitled "Alienation and Commitment in the Works of Joseph Conrad" at Birmingham University (1964-67), before taking up an English Literature appointment in Trinidad at the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine.
Spending 40 years at UWI, St Augustine – he began as Assistant Lecturer in 1968 and achieved a personal Chair by 1985 – he established an international reputation for his ground-breaking work on Caribbean literature, calypso and culture, building an extensive opus that comprises books, hundreds of essays, interviews, lectures and broadcasts. He co-edited, with Stewart Brown and Mervyn Morris, Voiceprint: An Anthology of Oral and Related Poetry from the Caribbean (Harlow: Longman Caribbean, 1989).
Rohlehr has also been Visiting Professor to Harvard University (September-December 1981); the Johns Hopkins University (September-December 1985); Tulane University (January-May 1997); Stephen F. Austin State University (January-May 2000); Miami University Writers’ Workshop (June-July 1995); York University, Toronto (January-February 1996) and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (June-August 2004).
Awards and honours
In 1995 Rohlehr received the University of the West Indies' Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in the combined fields of Teaching, Research, Administration and Public Service.
His retirement from UWI in 2007 was marked by a conference in his honour, "for his sterling contribution to the development of West Indian literary and cultural criticism".
Rohlehr's life and career are celebrated in a documentary film entitled Rivers of Sound.
At the 2014 NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Rohlehr was honoured alongside Professor Kenneth Ramchand with the Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters, which recognises the lifetime achievement of editors, publishers, critics and broadcasters.