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Girling, Anna
Early Career Fellow @ Institute of English Studies at the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies
Bio
Anna Girling recently completed a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. She is currently an Early Career Fellow in the Institute of English Studies at the University of London’s School of Advanced Studies, and will soon be a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Brighton’s Centre for Memory, Narrative and Histories.
Geographical location : London, UK
Research Area and Interest :
Social Media
Panel(s)
- Summary:
Presentation(s)
- Summary: Nancy Cunard is an important yet often overlooked figure in the histories of early twentieth-century transatlantic anti-colonialism and anti-racism. Described by Brent Hayes Edwards as a ‘“living network” of black internationalist connections and alliances’, Cunard is nevertheless largely absent from the histories of interwar internationalism. Key to any recalibration – of Cunard’s own work and literary and political reputation, and too of these internationalist histories – is Cunard’s large body of international interwar journalism. This talk will draw on my ongoing research into Cunard’s interwar journalism using the British Library’s holdings of Caribbean newspapers. I will discuss the ways in which Cunard’s life and work was reported on by newspapers in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados in the 1930s – and the discussions about race, censorship, and colonialism which this reporting enabled. I will also give an overview of Cunard’s own writings from and about the Caribbean during the 1930s and 1940s. These writings encapsulate the 1930s political shift from radical anti-colonialism and anti-racism to Popular Front anti-fascism – but also demonstrate Cunard’s continual work in forging and fostering internationalist links and solidarities, including between the Anglophone Caribbean and France, the US, Mali, Senegal, and Republican Spain.