Emma Malinak '25
As eleven W&L students and I walked through the bustling streets of Bridgetown, Barbados, we heard the poignant words of Dr. Trevor Marshall over the pounding of tropical rain on the cracked city sidewalk. “We don’t know our own history,” said Marshall, a Barbadian historian and retired professor from the University of the West Indies. Marshall went on to explain that the people of Barbados are “disappointingly callous” regarding their past and are unable to address the complex history of colonialism that has affected the island for nearly four centuries.
That history, while often hidden away by locals, is precisely what my peers and I were trying to uncover. The goal of our Spring Term Abroad (STA) class was to examine the impacts that colonialism and slavery have had on colonized peoples and observe the linkages between African and Caribbean history by exploring Barbados, a former British colony. Our class, led by Professor Dennie and Professor Kamara, accomplished this by visiting various historical sites, museums and cultural locations to better contextualize the island’s past. Professor Dennie commented that this engagement with history “forces us to confront the brutality of slavery and reckon with the humanity that enslaved people were denied.”
“Oftentimes people in the West [western hemisphere] are eurocentric in the way they think about and perceive certain concepts,” she said. “Studying abroad gives you a different perspective to view the world.”
Our class’s journey of discovery and growth is just one example of the 16 STA courses being offered at W&L this year.
