Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Professor Emily Zobel Marshall inaugural lecture will begin by positioning the folkloric trickster figures Anansi and Brer Rabbit as strategies of survival for enslaved peoples in the Americas. She will demonstrate how Caribbean carnival cultures have been used as rituals of resistance to colonial and patriarchal power, and show how art can be a tool in the struggle for social justice through Emily's work with the David Oluwale Memorial Association. Finally, Emily's ongoing research on 'The Black Outdoors', asks how we can 'decolonise' the literary and physical landscapes of the natural world through improving accessibility and diversifying both the outdoors and nature writing.
Drawing from over twenty-five years of research at Leeds Beckett University, her field work in Jamaica, Trinidad, Martinique, New Orleans, California, New Mexico and the UK and her own nature poetry and journey to become a Mountain Leader, Emily reflects on the entangled and rich connections between these areas of her work and explains how they inspire her confidence in cultural forms as a facilitator of radical resistance and profound social change.
This lecture is part of Leeds Beckett University's inaugural professorial lecture series.
BOOKS AND EDITED COLLECTIONS
(2024) Other Wild (Poetry Collection). Peepal Tree Press. Leeds.
(2023) Bath of Herbs (Poetry Collection). Peepal Tree Press: Leeds.
(2023) (ed. With Sai Murray) Oluwale Now: An Anthology of Poetry, Prose and Artwork Responding to the Story of David Oluwale. Peepal Tree Press: Leeds.
(2019) American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit. Rowman and Littlefield: London.
BOOK CHAPTERS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES
(2024) (forthcoming) ‘Postcolonial Tricksters: African Diasporic Folklore in Contemporary Culture’ in The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy-Tale Cultures.Jones, Chista & Schwabe, Claudia (eds.).(2024) ‘They Call Me Baby Doll: Challenging Shame in Mardi Gras and Trinidadian Carnival’ in MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars. Issue 15.
(2023) ‘Journeys of Migration: Claiming Space in Hostile Environments’ in Wasafiri: International Contemporary Writing. Spring. (May) Volume 38, Issue 2(Routledge).
(2023) ‘Beatrix Potter’s famous tales are rooted in stories told by enslaved Africans – but she was very quiet about their origins.’ The Conversation. May 19th, 2023.
(2022) ‘Wakanda forever reclaims the myth of an African Utopia’. The Conversation, Nov 25, 2022.
(2021) “’Who Going to Take Care of the Baby?" Diasporic Baby Dolls and Carnival Activism.’ The International Journal of Carnival Arts, Volume 4, Dec 2001, 2021.
(2020) ‘Carnival, Calypso and Dancehall Cultures: Making the Popular Political in Contemporary Caribbean Writing’ in Caribbean Literature in Transition, 1970-2015, Volume 3. Cummings, R. & Donnell, A. (eds). (Cambridge University Press).
(2019) ‘This is Not a Fairytale: Anansi and the Web of Narrative Power’ in Teverson, A (ed.) The Fairy Tale World (London: Routledge). *
(2017) Book Review: The Tar Baby: A Global History by Brian Wagner: The Times Literary Supplement. 22 Nov 2017.
(2016) ‘Carnival of the North’ in Caribbean Beat. Issue 140, July/August 2016.
(2011) Book Review: Notions of Identity, Diaspora and Gender in Caribbean Women’s Writing by Brinda Mehta in Contemporary Women’s Writing, March 2011 (Oxford Journals).
(2010) ‘’And Always, Anancy Changes’: An Exploration of Andrew Salkey’s Anancy Stories’ in Watt, M. Evans, L. & Smith, E. (eds.) The Caribbean Short Story: Critical Perspectives (Peepal Tree Press).
(2010) ‘Anansi, Eshu, and Legba: Slave Resistance and the West African Trickster’ in Hoermann, R. & Mackenthun, G. (eds.) Bonded Labour in the Cultural Contact Zone: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Slavery and Its Discourses (Waxmann).
(2009) ‘Anansi Tactics in Plantation Jamaica: Matthew Lewis’ Record of Trickery’, In Wadabagei: A Journal of the Caribbean and its Diaspora. Vol.12. No.3.
(2008) ‘From Messenger of the Gods to Muse of the People: The Shifting Contexts of Anansi’s Metamorphosis’, in Jamaica Journal. Oct. Vol. 29.
(2007) ‘Liminal Anansi: Symbol of Order and Chaos: An Exploration of Anansi's Roots among the Asante of Ghana' in Caribbean Quarterly. Oct-Nov. Vol. 53, No. 3.
(2007) ‘Tracking Anansi’ in Caribbean Beat. Nov-Dec. Issue 88.
(2006) ‘Byd o Addysg.’ Barn, pp. 18-19 (World of Education, Welsh Language Publication).
(2001) ‘“The Anansi Syndrome”: A Debate Concerning Anansi’s Influence on Jamaican Culture’. Journal of Postcolonial Writing. 39:1.
POETRY AND CREATIVE PUBLICATIONS
(2024) (forthcoming) ‘House Martins’, ‘Left’, ‘Mardi Gras Under the Freeway’, ‘Made of Light’, ‘Lemons, tomorrow’, ‘Quiet Stones,’ Siesta’, ‘All my Lovin’, ‘Made of Light’ in Sanctuary: An Anthology. Ross, Jacob (ed). Peepal Tree Press: Leeds.
(2024) ‘Now She Plants’ in Spelt: Poetry & Creative Non-Fiction Celebrating the Rural Experience. Issue 10, Winter.
(2023) ‘The Shape of Trees’, Seas, Trees and Attitude. London: Black Cat Poetry Press.
(2023) ‘The Shape of Trees’. Winner of the Black Cat Poetry Press poetry competition.
(2022) ‘Song for Leeds, Remembering David Oluwale’, Independent Life. Spring.
(2022) ‘Try to Map Me, She Said’, Dreamcatcher Literary Magazine, Issue 44.
(2022) ‘Dung Beetle’, Spelt: Poetry & Creative Non-Fiction Celebrating the Rural Experience. Issue 05, Spring 2022.
(2022) ‘The Reason I Slapped Barry’ and ‘Mother Sun’, Stand. Vol. 19, No. 4.
(2021) ‘The Study and the Den’, ‘Bath of Herbs’, ‘Running Lost’ ‘Cousin Remembered’, ‘Time for Breath’. Weighted Words: An Anthology of Creative Writing. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press.
(2021) ‘Anansi Mothers’, The Caribbean Writer. Vol 36.
(2020) ‘Give Thanks’, Activist Women: Caribbean Quarterly. Sep, Vol. 66. Issue 3.
(2020) ‘A Sweet Mango for Mami’, Smoke Magazine, Issue 67, Spring.
(2020) ‘Cousin Remembered’, Filigree Routes’, ‘Bath of Herbs’, Running Lost’, The Caribbean Writer. Dignity, Power and Place in the Caribbean Space, Vol 34.
(2019) ‘He Returned’, Magma, ‘The Loss’, Issue 75.
SHORT STORY/MEMOIR
(2015) ‘You’re the Right Colour’ in Tangled Roots: True-Life Tales of Mixed and Multi-Racial Families. The Arts Council.
Emily is of French-Caribbean and British heritage and grew up in the mountains of Snowdonia in North Wales. She is Professor in Postcolonial Literature at Leeds Beckett University. She is an expert on the trickster figure in the folklore, oral cultures and literature of the African Diaspora and has published widely in these fields, including her books Anansi’s Journey: A Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance (2012, University of the West Indies Press) and American Trickster: Trauma Tradition and Brer Rabbit (2019, Rowman and Littlefield).
She plays mas in Leeds West Indian carnival and has established a Caribbean Carnival Cultures research platform and network that aims to bring the critical, creative, academic and artistic aspects of carnival into dialogue with one another. She consults several arts, historical and educational organisations on decolonial methodologies and approaches and is Co-Chair of the David Oluwale Memorial Association, a charity committed to fighting racism and homelessness. She regularly contributes to discussions on race and racial politics in the media and has interviewed many world-famous writers, artists and musicians, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, LKJ, Gary Younge, Caryl Phillips, Yinka Shonibare and Corinne Bailey Rae.
Emily has had poems published in the Peepal Tree Press anthology Weighted Words (2021), Magma (‘The Loss’, Issue 75, 2019), Smoke Magazine (Issue 67, 2020), The Caribbean Writer (Vol 34, 2020, Vol 35, 2021 & Vol 36, 2021) and Stand (Vol. 19, No. 4). Her poetry collection, Bath of Herbs, published by Peepal Tree Press in July 2023, is described as ‘spellbinding’ and ‘a beautifully crafted, honest and thoughtful first collection which explores the complexity of mixed-race, hybrid identities and relationships to the English and Welsh mountains, fells, rivers and shorelines from an ‘othered’, unmappable, positionality.’
