Leading scholar for Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture

ONE OF the leading scholars in the area of post-colonial theory and literary studies, Professor Helen Tiffin, will deliver the Fourth Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture on Sunday, June 5, in the Neville Hall Lecture Theatre (N1) at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, at 11 a.m. She will speak on the topic 'Small Islands, Strong Currents: The Significance of West Indian Literature'.

The Edward Baugh Distinguished Lecture is an annual event organised by the Department of Literatures in English, UWI, in honour of poet Edward Baugh, who is Professor Emeritus of English at UWI, Mona. This year the lecture is being staged in association with the West Indian Association for Commonwealth Language and Literature Studies.

Tiffin is a former professor of English at the University of Tasmania and the University of Queensland in Australia, and was also professor of English at Queen's University in Canada, where she held a Canada Research chair. While at the University of Queensland, Professor Tiffin was a founding member of the Post-colonial Research Group as well as the Australian Association of Caribbean Studies. Tiffin's research and teaching interests include the history of colonial and post-colonial settler societies, literatures in English, Caribbean studies, literary theory, and more recently, the literary and cultural representation of animals. She is the author of The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures (1989) with Bill Ashcroft and Gareth Griffiths, regarded as a foundational text in post-colonial theory. More recently, Tiffin has written Post-colonial Ecocriticism: Literature, Animals, Environment (2010) with Graham Huggan. She has edited a number of collections, including Five Emus to the King of Siam: Environment and Empire (2007) and The Post-colonial Studies Reader (2006) with Bill Ashcroft and Gareth Griffiths.

International reputation

Professor Edward Baugh, after whom the lecture series is named, has garnered an international reputation as an authority on Anglophone Caribbean poetry in general and on the work of Derek Walcott in particular. He recently wrote Frank Collymore: A Biography, an account of the life and times of the late Barbadian poet and editor. Professor Baugh's distinguished record of academic, administrative and public service includes a lengthy stint as the public orator of UWI, Mona (1985-2002), three terms as head of the Department of English, and dean and vice-dean of the Faculty of Arts and General Studies. He has figured prominently as a leader in national, regional and international literary and academic associations such as the West Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies and the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies.

Members of the public are invited to attend the lecture.