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Partial screenshot of the website that hosts the online journal. Image usmonline.net

University of St. Martin (USM) President Dr. Francio Guadeloupe launched the online journal Commentaries at an informal ceremony. The university will host an official launch at the end of January 2016. Joshue Ferrol maintains the website and Pedro de Weever edits the journal

“Commentaries features scientific and popular essays from the Dutch Caribbean (and St. Maarten in particular),” Guadeloupe said in a press statement. “It aims to create and inhabit a space whereby the academic community and the general populace interacts.”

“To comment is to be in common, when a public sphere is created where the writings of scholars, activists, writers, public intellectuals, students and the general population/others, occupy the same space and is given the same importance; then and only then, does a developmental university as the USM is fulfill its role of contributing to the radical democratic project in the Caribbean,” Guadeloupe stated.

Commentaries has been launched with two issues in one volume. The first of which is the conference proceeding lectures at the recently completed conference on the continuing blight of racism on St. Eustatius. There are six papers online by local and regional scholars, researchers, and writers—Dr. Teresa Leslie, Dr. Francio Guadeloupe, Erwin Wolthuis, M.A., Dr. Rhoda Arrindell, Lianne Mulder M.A., Lysanne Charles Arrindell, MSc., and Lisenne Delgado from the University of Curaçao.

The first volume issue two covers the Caribbean Film Studies class conducted in the summer of last year, when the renowned Dutch Caribbean filmmaker, Sharelly Emanuelson MSc., taught the class: ART 232, “An Introduction to Film Studies: Activism, Caribbean Nation Building and the Politics of Filmmaking for Social Work.” The student participants wrote essays and produced short documentary films—both of which are on-line.
Member of Parliament Cornelius de Weever in his capacity as Minister of Public Health, Social Development and Labor and Aida Holaman-Boyrard head of the Department of Community Development, Family and Humanitarian Affairs were instrumental in providing the finances for this project of which NGO workers benefited.

An international editing board consisting of academics from the region and the USA will preside over the subsequent volume of Commentaries scheduled for the summer 2016. The Journal will also be linked to the site of sister institutions in the region.

The journal is accessible via the link http://www.usmonline.net/Commentaries.