(Trinidad Newsday) Professor Emeritus Gordon Rohlehr, 80, died on Sunday, provoking a flood of tributes from many sectors of society hailing his scholarship of West Indian popular culture, especially calypso music.
Judy Raymond, Newsday editorial consultant, in an online tribute said, “RIP, Professor Gordon Rohlehr. Calypso scholar, critic, essayist, teacher, lovely man.”
Gillian Moor, singer, said, “Farewell to the beautiful Dr Gordon Rohlehr. Thank you for your genius, your vision, your conversation, laughter, and your heart.
“Our deepest sympathies to the Rohlehr family. People, we’ve lost a giant.”
Last September, when Rohlehr received a Cha-conia silver medal for his teaching West Indian Literature at UWI, the Office of the President of the Republic of TT hailed his work.
“He pioneered the academic study of calypso and traced its historical development and social relevance,” the President’s office said. “He has researched and authored many ground-breaking publications on the social, historical, linguistic and political currents under girding Caribbean reality and is considered to be a leading authority on calypso and Caribbean culture.”
President Paula-Mae Weekes, as Chancellor of UWI, on Monday extended her condolences, recalling his 2022 national award in the spheres of Literature, Culture, History and Education.
Weekes, in her condolences, said Rohlehr had designed and taught UWI’s first course in West Indian Literature.
She quoted his national award citation.
“His conviction was that literature had a fundamental role to play in developing adequate self-awareness, without prejudice to the requirements of the wider world. His publications demonstrate insight, critical awareness and consciousness of the integration of the many social, historical, linguistic and political currents undergirding Caribbean reality.
“He has traced calypso’s historical development and social relevance and has explored issues such as masculinity and gender long before these terms gained currency.”
UWI Prof Emeritus Kenneth Ramchand in an online tribute said, “Shocking and grievous. I am trembling. We had a long and impactful working relationship in The Department of Literatures in English.” Ramchand recalled their mutual respect and the meshing of their different skills.
“He was cool. In the English corridors we had epic conversations, balancing securely on humour, irony and despair, about life, literature, calypso, politics and cricket.
“Condolences to his family, his friends and colleagues, and to the thousands of students, teachers, and professors who loved and enjoyed his teaching and writing, and were warmed by his embracing presence. I already miss your being at the other end, Gordon. It never crossed my mind that either of us could lose our wicket.”
UWI Pro Vice-Chan-cellor and principal Profes-sor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, in a release, remarked that Rohlehr’s “legacy is carried in the students he nurtured at the St Augustine Campus through conversation and intense enquiry. His former students and those who thronged his lecture rooms, as well as the many scholars and intellectuals who have benefitted from his pioneering and intense and thorough research, share a deep sense of loss and gratitude.”
Veteran journalist Tony Fraser said Rohlehr was one of the finest West Indian intellectuals, whose study focused sharply on TT’s creative literature.
“It was he who placed calypso on stage as one of the highest expressions of our performing arts. He gave freely of his intellectual work to the public.”
Fraser recalled a TTT studio discussion with Rohlehr, and calypsonians Andrew “Brother Superior” Marcano and Samuel “Brigo” Abraham, about the genius of Theophilus “Mighty Spoiler” Philip.
“The Prof tutored a few generations of students in how to fully appreciate the creations of calypsonians and other writers of literature.”
Fraser hailed Rohlehr’s insightful writings on West Indies cricket including an essay on his fellow Guyanese national Rohan Kanhai.
“Prof has left behind his unparalleled work in calypso and West Indian literature for the generations to come. We celebrate your life and work Professor. Blessings as you go.”
Veteran broadcaster Dominic Kalipersad hailed Rohlehr as a Caribbean literary scholar who pioneered the academic and intellectual study of calypso and the calypsonian.
“He was noted for his study of popular culture in the Caribbean, including oral poetry, calypso, and cricket.”
He said Rohlehr spent 40 years in the UWI, St Augustine, Department of English doing internationally-acclaimed and ground-breaking work on Caribbean literature, calypso, and culture.
His academic interest and research resulted in the production of an extensive written opus on West Indian literature, oral poetry, calypso, and the popular culture of the Caribbean.
Rohlehr’s publications include: Calypso and Society in Pre-Indepen-dence Trinidad (1990), My Strangled City and Other Essays (1992), The Shape of That Hurt and Other Essays (1992), A Scuffling of Islands: Essays on Calypso (2004), Perfected Fables Now: A Bookman Signs Off on Seven Decades (2019), and Musings, Mazes, Muses, Margins (2020).
The Bocas Lit Fest was deeply shocked and saddened at the death of Rohlehr, a “literary scholar, cultural commentator, intellectual mentor, and emeritus professor.”
“He was a beloved teacher and a public intellectual in the best sense, known for his deeply informed and insightful writing on calypso, on West Indian poetry, and especially on the work of Kamau Brathwaite. Prof Rohlehr was a regular participant on the Bocas Lit Fest stage over the years, and it was an honour for us when he accepted the Bocas Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters back in 2014.
“He was a towering presence both physically and intellectually, and the only consolation for his loss is the extraordinary archive of his scholarship, always elegantly and accessibly written, that he has left us.”
The Paper Based Book-shop in St Ann’s said its staff were deeply saddened to learn of Rohlehr’s passing and hailed his “titanic brilliance.”
“For decades, we’ve been honoured to stock his books on our shelves, and to hear first-hand from readers the effect his generous, insightful scholarship has had on their world-view.
“Perhaps best of all, we’ve been delighted by Prof Rohlehr’s in-person visits to deliver copies of his self-published titles, which remain highly requested by academics and non-academics alike. “We treasure those interpersonal chats, full of Gordon’s warmth, signature wit, and endless intelligence. We will miss them dearly.”
UNC PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo told Newsday Rohlehr had been his university colleague and his passing was “a tremendous loss” to TT’s intellectual life.
“We shared so many concerns about the cultural integrity and the cultural life of TT and the way it had fallen down – politics and so forth.”
“When I used to work with Lloyd Best at the TT Institute of the West Indies, we also had a lot of contact there. He was very much connected to the whole New World Group.
Meighoo said this trail-blazing group included “a whole generation of intellectuals” including Rohlehr, Ramchand and Best.
“I have to say that I am saddened that their legacy has not been continued in the same way.
“Prof Rohlehr did some extremely detailed, high intellectual analysis of our situation – our music, art, culture, poetry – in a way that unfortunately has not been carried on with the same level of quality, intellectual calibre, erudition, insight, dedication and love. He had all of that.
“I always found it so interesting that he was Guyanese, and had this love and knowledge of Trinidadian culture. It was just incredible.”
The PNM paid tribute in a Facebook post, citing a tribute by former UWI International Relations professor, Mark Kirton.
“He was a true academic and professional, always willing to offer advice and guidance to young scholars and students.
“Unquestionably one of the Caribbean’s finest critics and thinkers, his territory covers both literature and popular culture, particularly calypso.”
The tribute said Rohlehr earned a first class honours degree in English Literature in 1964 from the University College of the West Indies, Jamaica, then wrote a doctoral dissertation, Alienation and Commitment in the Works of Joseph Conrad, at Birmingham University, England in 1967.
His publications included: Pathfinder: Black Awakening in The Arrivants of Edward Kamau Brathwaite; Cultural Resistance and the Guyana State; A Scuffling of Islands: Essays on Calypso; Transgression, Transition, Transformation: Essays in Caribbean Culture; and Ancestries: Readings of Kamau Brathwaite’s Ancestors and My Whole Life is Calypso: Essays on Sparrow.
The tribute concluded, “Thank you for the immeasurable effort you have invested in cataloguing and documenting our culture.”
