(Partner Event) Black Cinemas in the Caribbean Basin: Expanding the Black Gaze

Join Dr. Elena Martinez (Modern Languages and Comparative Literature, Baruch College) and Dr. Rojo Robles (Black and Latino Studies, Baruch College) for a discussion on the “Black Gaze” as a critical and political act of spectatorship. Often theorized within the context of African American cinema, the Black Gaze challenges the whiteness of mainstream media, fostering confrontation, intimacy, and accountability in portraying Black lives. This event seeks to expand the concept of the Black Gaze beyond the US to the Caribbean basin and Latin America, examining how affirming Black cinema in the region can provide an Afro-diasporic perspective of its societies and geographies. Key questions include: How can the Black Gaze engage with the visualities of the Caribbean basin? How are Latin American and Caribbean cinemas incorporating—or displacing—Blackness in their narratives? Explore Black cinema’s historical, cultural, and aesthetic dimensions and its role in reclaiming agency, dignity, and authenticity in storytelling across the diaspora.