Between myth and nation: Rethinking Caribbean history, politics, literature, and aesthetics (Guyana)

This dissertation uses a cross-disciplinary framework, grounded in the humanities and social sciences, to analyze the production of historical, political, and literary narratives in postindependence Guyana. Through criticism of the work of Caribbean leaders and cultural thinkers such as Forbes Burnham, Walter Rodney, Wilson Harris, Edouard Glissant, and other key figures in the development of Caribbean cultural discourse, questions emerge for broad discussions of Caribbean (West Indian) nationalism, history and the modes of representation available for various ethnic groups, especially attempts to establish a regional, New World identity and literary aesthetic that are postmodern and postcolonial.; In the dissertation, I assert that traditional ways of viewing postcolonial nationalism in the Caribbean often miss the discursive and material ways in which it negotiates with colonial history and the fundamental and ongoing struggle over being and belonging in the New World. Attempts to understand the various ethno-political crises in Guyana and in other Caribbean territories must pay closer attention to the way in which political and cultural representation and rights claims in the Caribbean remain bound to the unfolding of myth and historical discourse inside political and cultural narratives. Ultimately, contemporary Guyanese cultural discourse reveals the limits of Creole theory and shapes a broader inquiry of Caribbean (post)colonial and (post)modern discourses.