SINT MAARTEN (GREAT BAY) - The 49th Annual Caribbean Studies Association (CSA) Conference will be held in St. Martin at Simpson Bay Resort, May 1–7, 2025. The conference registration and hotel booking list already includes over 300 guests, ranging from A-list scholars to university graduate students.
St. Martin will share center stage in regional intellectual discourse at this major academic conference that critically explores the Caribbean’s political, historical, educational, scientific, and cultural landscapes.
“That St. Martin is hosting such an assembly—one that engages these dimensions with both critical insight and professional rigor—is powerful,” said Lasana M. Sekou, projects director at House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP).
Sekou and the St. Martin book publisher HNP will be the focus of the plenary panel titled “Unshackling Memory: The Literary and Publishing Works of Lasana M. Sekou.” The session is part of the broader conference theme, “Reparations: Resistance, Resilience, Reproduction, and Rehabilitation,” according to Dr. Rhoda Arrindell, president of CSA for 2024–2025.
Coinciding with HNP’s 45th anniversary year 2025, the panel will bring together an international group of scholars and critics to examine Sekou’s literary and book publishing contributions to St. Martin and the wider region, as well as the evolution of the island’s literature. Panelists include Dr. Dannabang Kuwabong (Ghana/University of Puerto Rico), Dr. Margaret Shrimpton Masson (Mexico/UK), Fabian Adekunle Badejo (St. Martin), and Dr. Emilio Jorge Rodríguez (Cuba).
Dr. Arrindell, a St. Martiner and faculty member at Howard University, will moderate the discussion.
“We’re inviting the St. Martin people to join CSA members at the plenary on Tuesday, June 3, from 3:30 to 5 pm in the Simpson Bay Resort ballroom,” said Arrindell. A plenary session is the part of the conference where all participants can attend and engage in discussion.
During the session, panelists, CSA members, and attendees will also get a preview of Dr. Kuwabong’s forthcoming book, Rhetoric of Resistance, Labor of Love: The Ecopoetics of Nationhood in the Poetry and Prose of Lasana M. Sekou. The book will officially launch at the St. Martin Book Fair on Friday, June 6, at the Poetry Garden of the Collectivity government building in Marigot.
“At the CSA conference, there will be six exciting plenaries. We’re encouraging the public to stop by throughout the week at the resort’s ballroom to exchange ideas, engage in discussions that have real implications for our island and St. Martin people, and meet our guests,” said Arrindell, who, as CSA president, is overseeing the plenary sessions.
In addition, the week-long event will feature more than 32 panel sessions where scholars—including academics and experts from St. Martin—will present research and position papers. Other highlights include the Book Salon and the Author Celebration, showcasing new publications by CSA members.
Arrindell and the St. Martin CSA organizing committee are planning collaborative events with the 22nd annual St. Martin Book Fair, June 5–7, said Book Fair coordinator Shujah Reiph.
Public activities during the week will include a cultural showcase of St. Martin dance, music, and theater at the Marigot Waterfront, said Arrindell.
“The goal is for St. Martin to shine—by working together as organizations and sponsors, and by encouraging our people to participate alongside guest authors and the many visiting academics,” said Reiph.
The annual CSA congress of scholars, artists, and activists convenes each year in a different country or territory of the region. More information is available at caribbeanstudiesassociation.org
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