Elections for committee members are held at the AGM of the Society at the annual conference, in accordance with the society’s constitution SCS_Constitution. Elections of ordinary members are held annually, and elections for the executive positions are held once every two years. Nomination forms can be downloaded here.
Our Current Committee
SCS Executive
Chair (2023-25): Leighan Renaud / University of Bristol, UK
Leighan Renaud is a lecturer in Caribbean Literatures and Cultures at the University of Bristol. Her research interests include literary representations of motherhood and matrifocality in 21st-century Anglophone Caribbean fiction, and oral folk traditions in the Eastern Caribbean.
Vice Chair (2024-25): Kesewa John / Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Kesewa John Lecturer in Black British History and convenor of the MA Black British History at Goldsmiths. A bilingual (French/English) Black feminist historian of liberation movements, intellectual history, and gender, Dr John’s research and teaching explores transatlantic, multilingual linkages between Afro-Caribbean activists and the evolution and circulation of Black radical thought.
Secretary: VACANT
Treasurer (2020-2026): Christian Høgsbjerg / University of Brighton, UK
Christian Høgsbjerg is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Brighton. Christian works on Black British History, Caribbean history, British imperial history and how race and empire impacted more broadly on British identity, politics, society and culture.
Membership Secretary (2023-25): Mark Harris / University of Cincinnati (OH), USA
Mark Harris is an artist, writer, and curator. As Professor at the School of Art, University of Cincinnati, he researches how individuals and groups use language, imagery, and music to reveal everyday experience as remarkable. His artwork and writing concern intentional communities and avant-garde groups, including Fourier’s 19th-century Harmony, Surrealist writers, 1960s communes, Beat poets and filmmakers, and musician communities including Caribbean singers and UK punk bands.
Conference Coordinator (2023-25): Liz Egan / University of Warwick and University of Cambridge, UK
Liz Egan (she/her) is social and cultural historian of Britain and the Caribbean, interested in the negotiations of race, class, and gender in the post-emancipation Caribbean. She is a Teaching Fellow in Modern European History at the University of Warwick and Research Associate in the Legacies of Enslavement at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge.
Ordinary Committee Members
Renée Landell / Northeastern University, UK (IT Sub-Committee Lead 2023-25)
Renée Landell is a literary and cultural scholar, visual artist, writer, and public speaker. She completed her PhD in 2023 and is now the Research Project Manager for ‘Mapping Black London’ (MPEF) at Northeastern University London. Alongside her writing and speaking, Dr Landell is the founding director of Beyond Margins UK as well as co-founder of ‘Black in Arts and Humanities’, a global online network of Black scholars and practitioners.
Justine Collins / University of McGill, CA (2023-25)
Justine Collins is the Boulton Junior Fellow at the University McGill. She was previously the Usawa Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Law at SOAS, University of London. A legal historian, she specializes in the intersection of law and society, particularly within colonial slavery laws of the Atlantic World.
Shayne De Landè / Independent Scholar (2024-26)
Shayne de-Landè is a South London born Trinidadian and Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist Carnivalist, Researcher and Historian of Caribbean Radicalism and Culture. As a Public Historian, she explores the history of Caribbean culture and the influence of African culture and spiritualism through the lens of carnival.
Postgraduate Students’ Representatives:
Rachel Chery / University of Chicago, USA (2024-26)
Rachel Chery is a seventh-year music history Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation examines the history of transnational connections created by Haitian radio throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Her areas of interest include the relationship between music and nationalism in Haiti, media studies, diaspora, migration, and soccer fandom
Mandy Preville-Findlay / University of Southampton, UK (2024-25)
Mandy Preville-Findlay is a PhD candidate Geography & Environmental Science and development coach. She co-founded BEYOND IYANOLA CIC (a diaspora-focused community interest organisation) through which she seeks to identify, celebrate and amplify the brilliance of the global Caribbean and African diaspora in general and in particular, the Saint Lucian diaspora.