Distinguished Caribbean educational Professor Emeritus Gordon Rohlehr dies

Trinidadian President Paula-Mae Weekes has led the tributes following the dying of the Guyana-born Professor Emeritus Gordon Rohlehr, acknowledged as an authority on West Indian literature and calypso, who died final weekend. He was 80 years outdated.

Rohlehr, who taught on the College of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus, was described within the assertion by the top of state as “one other member of the distinguished society of Trinidad and Tobago.”

The reason for dying has not but been launched.

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Rohlehr was awarded the Chaconia Medal, Silver the Spheres of Literature, Tradition, Historical past and Schooling on the Nationwide Awards 2022 by the Trinidad and Tobago authorities.

The quotation famous that he had “designed, piloted and taught the primary course in West Indian Literature. He later turned energetic within the enlargement and growth of the course choices in English and was central to the introduction and instructing of American Literature and Put up-Colonial Literature.

“His conviction was that literature had a elementary function to play in growing satisfactory self-awareness with out prejudice to the necessities of the broader world. His publications reveal perception, important consciousness and consciousness of the mixing of the numerous social, historic, linguistic and political currents undergirding Caribbean actuality.

“His most vital contribution to boost nationwide consciousness has been his phenomenal work on calypso. He has traced calypso’s historic growth and social relevance and has explored points similar to masculinity and gender lengthy earlier than these phrases gained foreign money,” it added.

Rohlehr, who’s the creator of a number of books on totally different features of Caribbean tradition, had stated as soon as his curiosity on researching and writing about calypso music dates again to his attendance on the Caribbean Artists Motion’s second assembly, held in 1967 on the North London flat of Orlando Patterson, when in response to dialogue among the many likes of Kamau Brathwaite, George Lamming and Aubrey Williams about “the Caribbean aesthetic”

Former professor in Worldwide Relations at UWI, Mark Kirton mirrored on the passing of Rohlehr, advised the Guyana-based on-line publication, Demerarawaves.com he “was an authority on West Indian literature and the calypso.

“He was a real educational {and professional}, at all times keen to supply recommendation and steering to younger students and college students,” Kirton added.

Emeritus Gordon Rohlehr graduated in 1964 from the College Faculty of the West Indies, Jamaica, with a first-class honors diploma in English Literature, after which he wrote a doctoral dissertation titled Alienation and Dedication within the Works of Joseph Conrad at Birmingham College, England (1964-1967)

CMC/