RENOWNED scholar and curator Professor Anthony Bogues is set to deliver a landmark lecture on Caribbean cultural evolution to mark the 92nd anniversary of Professor Rex Nettleford’s birth on February 3.

The lecture is being regarded as a fitting tribute to one of the region’s most transformative intellectual voices.

Bogues, the Asa Messer Professor of Humanities at Brown University and director of the Ruth J Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, brings a formidable arsenal of expertise to this year’s examination of Caribbean Culture: Its Evolution and Impact on Social Order.

His selection carries particular weight, given his extensive work in African and Caribbean political thought, intellectual history, and art — areas that closely parallel Nettleford’s passionate pursuit of cultural understanding.

The timing resonates deeply within the Caribbean academic community, coming almost 15 years after Nettleford’s passing in February 2010.

Nettleford’s death left not only an intellectual vacuum but was also a clarion call to preserve and advance Caribbean cultural scholarship — a mantle Bogues appears well-positioned to carry forward.

Bogues’ current work spans continents and disciplines. He’s orchestrating several major biographical works, including studies of Haitian artist Andre Pierre, Caribbean political figure Michael Manley, and theorist CLR James.

His curatorial footprint stretches from the Caribbean to South Africa, with his latest triumph being the co-curation of In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the Modern World at the National African American Museum of History and Culture.