Join us for a keynote lecture and public reading by Apricot Irving, author of The Gospel of Trees. Irving is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award and an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship.  Her work has appeared in Granta, This American Life, MORE Magazine, Oregon Humanities and the anthology Best Women’s Travel Writing. A public reading of The Gospel of Trees (2018) and Q&A session with the author shine a spotlight on the challenges of well-meaning missionaries who don’t always contemplate the nuanced implications of “help” in the Caribbean.

Through keynote lectures, panel discussions, the art exhibition, film screenings, and literature readings, the symposium will permit an open and critical discourse about Caribbean communities from Port-au-Prince to Puerto Rico to Port of Spain; from Chicago to St. Croix; from Tobago to Toronto. A humanist perspective will inspire participants to consider issues of social justice by interrogating how individuals from marginalized identities fit into their families, communities, nations, and world. 

THE UNEXPECTED CARIBBEAN SYMPOSIUM will be open and accessible to the public, completely free of charge. Six public events will take place in locations on KU's campus and around Lawrence.