Carolyn Cooper

Jamaican literary scholar and writer (born 1950)

Carolyn Cooper CD (born 20 November 1950) is a Jamaican author, essayist and literary scholar. She is a former professor of Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. From 1975 to 1980, she was an assistant professor at Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster, Massachusetts. In 1980, she was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies (UWI), where she continued to work until her retirement as a professor in 2017. Also a newspaper journalist, Cooper writes a weekly column for the Sunday Gleaner.

Carolyn Joy Cooper was born in 1950 in Kingston, Jamaica, to parents who were members of the Seventh day Adventist Church. She attended St Hugh's High School in Kingston. In 1968, she was awarded the Jamaica Scholarship (Girls). She attended the University of the West Indies, Mona, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (B. A. English) in 1971. She was awarded a Canadian International Development Agency fellowship to the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1971 to study for her master's degree in English, which was followed by the completion of her PhD at the same institution in 1977.

In 1980, Cooper was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, where she taught courses on Caribbean, African American and African literature, as well as popular culture. the plenary papers for which are collected in Global Reggae (2012), edited by Cooper and published by the University of the West Indies Press. With Dr Eleanor Wint, Cooper co edited Bob Marley: The Man and His Music (2003), a selection of papers presented at the 1995 symposium that marked the reggae icon's 50th birthday. In 2017, Cooper retired from being professor of literary and cultural studies at UWI. Selected presentations by her are held at UWI Archives.

Cooper is the author of the books Noises in the Blood: Orality, Gender and the "Vulgar" Body of Jamaican Popular Culture (1993) and Sound Clash: Jamaican Dancehall Culture at Large (2004), as well as numerous articles, book chapters, conference presentations and plenary lectures. A well known media personality in Jamaica, she is a weekly columnist for the Sunday Gleaner. In the 1990s, she co hosted a television show, Man and Woman Story, with Dr Leahcim Semaj for the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation.

"Loosely talking theory: Oral/Sexual Discourse in Jamaican Popular Culture", The CRNLE Reviews Journal, 1, 1994, pp. 62–73. "Lyrical Gun: Metaphor and Role Play in Jamaican Dancehall Culture", The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 35, Issues 3 & 4, 1994, pp. 429–447. "Race and the Cultural Politics of Self representation: A View from the University of the West Indies", Research in African Literatures, 27, 1996, pp. 97–105. "Ragamuffin sounds: Crossing over from reggae to rap and back", Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 44, nos 1 & 2, 1998, pp. 153–168. "'West Indies plight': Louise Bennett and The Cultural Politics of Federation", Social and Economic Studies, 48, 1999, pp. 211–228. "Punany Powah", Black Media Journal, 2, 2000, pp. 50–52. "Enslaved in Stereotypes: Race and Representation in Post independence Jamaica", Small Axe, 16, 2004, pp. 154–169. "Not Even One Token Woman! ", Stabroek News, 21 February 2011. "UWI celebrates 50 plus years of teaching fi wi literature", The Gleaner, 6 June 2021.