Archipelago

This opening part includes nine essays which provide the thematic and theoretical scope of the project. These include: “Sense,” “Arrival,” “Breathe,” “Genre,” “Method,” “Archive,” “Mas,” “Rhetoric,” and “Archipelago.” Embracing a vernacular form of epideictic, or demonstrative, rhetoric, the arc of this series begins with the individual—in this case, the narrative authorial voice in “Sense”—and proceeds through a series that forms the major conceptual components of a “sense of arrival.” Ending with an explanatory reading of “archipelagic thought” in the essay “Archipelago,” the section introduces, situates, and extends the notion of memoir as embodied practice. The series also makes use of “transmediality,” including poetry, prose, graphic illustration, and photography to craft Caribbean nonfiction. These themes recur in various forms throughout the book, making transmediality an active expression of rhetorical sensibility emerging from the region and its people.