The University of the West Indies, Mona is pleased to announce the promotion of Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS), Faculty of Humanities & Education, Dr. Donna P. Hope, to the rank of professor with effect from October 4, 2017.

Dr. Hope holds the Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Mass Communication and the Masters of Philosophy (MPhil) in Government from The University of the West Indies, (UWI) Mona, and the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Cultural Studies from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

She joined the full-time staff of The UWI, Mona in 2007 as Lecturer in the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS). She was promoted to Senior Lecturer effective August 1, 2010, with tenure granted in 2012.  In 2012, she was appointed Director of the ICS, serving a three-year term.

Dr. Hope is internationally recognized to be one of the most insightful and original scholars of contemporary Jamaican music, especially Dancehall. Her areas of academic specialization have included cultural studies, Caribbean studies, media and communication, popular culture, Jamaican popular culture, creative/cultural industries, gender and sexuality, politics and youth development. Assessors have pointed to Dr. Hope’s solid theoretical grasp of relevant academic theory combined with an insider’s knowledge of Jamaican society. She is, they said, an impressive scholar who is making a fine contribution to the study of Jamaican music and culture and to related fields of gender studies and popular culture.

As a researcher, Donna Hope has a distinguished record of scholarship and publications with twenty-one (21) refereed publications that include four books, (two single authored), four book chapters and thirteen (13) journal articles. An edited collection, ReggaeStories:  Musical Legends and Cultural Legacies is forthcoming from the UWI Press in June 2018. 

She has received several awards, including two Principal’s Research Awards in 2010 for Best Research Publication – Book for the book Man Vibes:  Masculinities in the Jamaican Dancehall, and Best Research Publication – Article for the article From the Stage to the Grave:  Exploring Celebrity Funerals in Dancehall Culture.  In 2008 her book Inna di Dancehall:  Popular Culture and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica received a bestseller award from the UWI Press. She was also recipient of several research grants, including UWI, Mona Special Initiative Grants, which have allowed her to study Popular Music Consumption and Violence and Media Coverage of Popular Music Feuds.

In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Hope has maintained a steady schedule of academic and non-academic presentations in various fora, delivering over one hundred presentations at conferences, seminars, panel discussions and other specially invited activities in countries including Jamaica, Italy and Spain, the United States of America, Venezuela and Colombia. These formal presentations have expanded her reach beyond physical and temporal borders, and have cemented her role beyond academia, as a critical public intellectual whose analyses of and ideas about popular culture, popular music and Jamaican life and culture, have become a critical component of the cache of information that is drawn upon by a variety of individuals from different disciplines. 

Dr. Hope has contributed significantly to teaching at The UWI, Mona, covering a range of graduate and undergraduate courses in Political Science (Department of Government), Communication (CARIMAC) Gender and Popular Culture (George Mason) and Cultural Studies (ICS).  She has also supervised some 35 theses and dissertations.  As Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, she spearheaded the further expansion of the ICS’ undergraduate course offerings and developed one new minor in Cultural/Creative Industries and finalizing the Reggae Studies Minor.  She has been responsible for the development of four undergraduate courses including Performing Culture:  Dancehall as Ritual and Spectacle and Culture, Gender and Sexuality in Jamaican Popular Music and a new minor in Cultural/Creative Industries in the ICS.

Other activities include acting as Conference Chair for international conferences which all attracted an international and multidisciplinary set of participants including academics, researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, journalists, practitioners, industry specialists, government and public sector individuals and other interested parties to The UWI, Mona Campus. 

Professor Hope is a Member on the editorial boards of four journals, Critical World: Thinking Globalization through Music (since 2006), Journal of the University College of the Cayman Islands (since 2008), Cultural Landscapes (since 2009) and the Caribbean InTransit Arts Journal (since 2011).   She has also worked as Reviewer for the UWI Press, the Journal of Consumer Culture, Caribbean Quarterly, Communication, Culture and Critique, Journal of the University College of the Cayman Islands (JUCCI) and Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies (LACES). Dr Hope is a Founding member and Caribbean Representative of the International Auto/Biography Association’s Chapter of the Americas since 2013, Board member of the Universal Media Company Ltd. (operators of Newstalk 93FM), and holds membership on various committees, such as the Students Loan Bureau’s Appeals Committee, the Institute of Jamaica’s Jamaica Music Museum’s Advisory Committee, and the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association’s Reggae Month Committee.   

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