Donna P. Hope

Donna P. Hope, PhD is tenured Professor of Culture, Gender and Society in the Institute of Caribbean Studies, and former Deputy Dean for Graduate Studies and Research in the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. A specialist in the areas of popular culture, identity, masculinities, and media, Professor Hope’s work tackles Jamaican/Caribbean cultures of identity-making as they intersect with power domains.

She has made numerous presentations locally, regionally, and across the world, and published extensively in the areas of popular culture, gender, music, identity, and creative industries. Professor Hope believes in the importance of documenting culture and has published six academic books, one self-published motivational book, and many articles in journals and newspapers. Her most recent publication titled Dancehall Queen: Erotic Subversion/Subversion Erotica (edited with Carla Lamoyi) was published in August 2023. A bilingual work written simultaneously in English and Spanish, this book historicizes the Dancehall Queen phenomenon in its engagement with music, dance and fashion, and assesses the movement of this female-focussed cultural force outwards both regionally and globally.

Professor Hope is a former Director of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, where she organized and chaired four International Reggae Conferences. A keen cultural activist with a deep interest in black, working class culture, and a researcher with a strong ethnographic focus,
Professor Hope is the founder of The Dancehall Archive and Research Initiative (www.dancehallarchive.org) which preserves, innovates and disseminates information about dancehall culture, while working with Dancehall actors and researchers locally, regionally and internationally. Dancehall Queen is the Dancehall Archive’s first book publication done jointly with FIEBRE Ediciones (Mexico).

A renowned keynote speaker, social commentator, former talk show host, and itinerant newspaper columnist, Professor Hope is finalizing her poetry monograph, These Thorns Have Roses, for publication. She is also completing the final draft her manuscript on the spread of
dancehall’s dance industry under the title Dancehall’s Scattered Children; as well as her work on the transitions in Afro-Caribbean gender structures tentatively titled Transitory Masculinities. Professor Hope holds a B.A. in Mass Communication *Hons), and Masters of Philosophy
(Political Science) from the University of the West Indies, Mona; and, as a Fulbright scholar to the USA, she completed a PhD in Cultural Studies from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.