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Miss Latetia & Miss Lou: Why did we leave the ladies out?

Speaker - Kei Miller and Moderator - Andrea Shaw Nevins

Professor Kei Miller dives into the selection and meaning of “National Hero,” Jamaica’s highest honor and introduces Latetia Gohagen, a forgotten, rather than honored, historical figure

Southwest Regional Library and the Louise Bennett-Coverley Heritage Council present the sixth annual Louise Bennett-Coverley Memorial Lecture -"Miss Latetia & Miss Lou: Why did we leave the ladies out?" Professor Miller will dissect the selection of the honorees for Jamaica’s most senior order – the “Order of National Hero” with moderator Dr. Andrea Shaw Nevins.  He will share his research and discuss that Miss Lou is an outstanding candidate entitled to be styled “The Rt Excellent” and introduce Miss Latetia as a Jamaican woman deserving of the distinguished honor.

The Jamaican Order of National Hero represents an important way in which the nation institutionalizes the telling of its own story. In this lecture, Professor Miller will look at the story and stories, to question why a particular narrative was important at the time, and to ask, “what other stories may have been muffled or completely muted.” Professor Miller will consider, for the first time, the figure of Latetia Gohagen who has been almost completely erased from the historical record and reconsider the beloved “Folk hero”- Louise Bennett, whose work, while widely celebrated, is not seen as ‘heroic’ and deserving of the honor of ‘National Hero.’

Professor Kei Miller is the author of 11 books that range across genres – fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He is interested both in that movement between genres and between creative writing and literary scholarship.  In 2014 he won the Forward Prize for Poetry for The Cartographer Tries to Map A Way To Zion. His Novel Augustown won the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. His collection of essays, Things I Have Withheld was shortlisted for the Bailley Gifford Prize. He has also written several essays of literary scholarship in the field of Caribbean Literature. Miller joined the English Faculty at UM in 2021. He previously taught in the UK at the Universities of Exeter, London, and Glasgow. Miller has an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Metropolitan University and a PhD in English Literature from the University of Glasgow. His dissertation examined the epistolary tradition in West Indian Literature.

Dr. Andrea Shaw Nevins is a professor and dean of the Farquhar Honors College at Nova Southeastern University. Her areas of interest are academic leadership, Caribbean literature and popular culture, and creative writing. She is author of The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women's Unruly Political Bodies (2006) and Working Juju: Representations of the Caribbean Fantastic (2019). Her fiction as well as her scholarly writing have been published in numerous journals, including Small Axe, World Literature Today, sx salon, MaComére, The Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Feminist Media Studies, and Social Semiotics. She has taught courses in literature, writing, and film, as well as multidisciplinary courses such as the honors seminar Captive Women. This honors course explores narratives of female captivity and confinement in literature and film.

This event is made possible by with support from the Broward County Cultural Division, The Consulate General of Jamaica, Miami and Broward County Libraries.

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