Calls for Papers
Call for Papers Caribbean Studies Association Conference May 24-28, 2010, Barbados
The CSA is calling for papers for its 35th annual conference, whose theme is " Understanding the Everyday Occurrence of Violence in the Cultural Life of the Caribbean: Where Do We Go From Here?"
We are seeking scholarly papers from individuals spanning the broadest disciplinary and methodological range whose work focuses upon the Caribbean and its Diaspora. While we consider individual papers, we encourage submissions of entire panel proposals. We also encourage and welcome graduate student submissions. While your paper/panel does not have to be on the conference theme, we do welcome submissions that address the theme, whether directly or indirectly. More information on the conference theme is available at the CSA website, www.caribbean-studies.org . All submissions must be made via the online submission form at www.caribbean-studies.org. The deadline for submissions is January 22, 2010.
For information pertaining to the program only, please contact: Program Chair D. Alissa Trotz at datrotz@gmail.com
For any information pertaining to registration or membership, please contact Joy.Cooblal-CSA@sta.uwi.edu
CALL FOR PAPERS: 2nd. International Conference on Caribbean Studies (ICCS) II Conferencia Internacional en Estudios Caribeños
“The Many Caribbean’s and the Bicentennial of the Continental
Spanish American Independence Movements
University of Cartagena, Cloister of St. Augustine
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia
March 15-19, 2010
The II International Conference on Caribbean Studies (ICCS) will take place
from March 15-19, 2010, in Cartagena de Indias in the Caribbean region of
Colombia. The main theme emphasizes, but is not thematically limited to, the
interdisciplinary character of the conference. Papers on a wide range of
historical, cultural, artistic, literary, linguistic, social sciences and theory will
be consider.
We will accept only one proposal for paper or panel per each author, in
Spanish, English or French. The panels will be composed of a maximum of 4
presentations. Presentations should not pass twenty minutes; the members of
the panels and the session chairs will rigorously follow this limit. Please send
an abstract of 200 words or less by electronic attachment (Word) to:
hrromero@utpa.edu (in English or French) and to figueroa@javeriana.edu.co
(in Spanish) by November 15, 2009. Visit our Web page at :
www.utpa.edu/dept/modlang
CALL FOR PAPERS: S A R G A S S O 25th Anniversary Issue
Call for Interviews: suggested abstract
deadline November 15, 2009
Submission deadline February
1, 2010
Sargasso, A Journal of
Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture
is currently accepting interviews to be published in an upcoming 25th
anniversary issue. The special
issue, which marks two and a half decades of the journal’s existence, will
include 25 interviews with activists, artists, community leaders, researchers,
writers, and others who are in or have links to the Caribbean. Contributors are
asked to creatively explore ways in which the interview can complement the
celebration of this anniversary. The editors suggest that it offers ample
opportunity for innovation and a freedom of form and content that is often less
accessible in other types of scholarly inquiry.
Of special interest to this project is interdisciplinary work that will later serve as a resource for students, teachers, and researchers. This volume aims to represent the social,
cultural, geographic, and linguistic diversity of the Caribbean. Submissions can be in any Caribbean language, including English, Spanish, French, and Papiamentu. Interviews with persons from the smaller and less frequently studied parts of the region are
particularly encouraged. An extended on-line version of the volume will be
developed following print publication. It will be made available on the journal’s website, as have previously published interviews.
Interviews will be organized into 5 categories:
* Memory
* Writing and Art
* Activism
* Popular Culture
* Language and Linguistics
Interviews should be no more than 6,000 words in length. Photos, illustrations, electronic
links, and other graphics are welcome. Potential contributors are asked to share ideas with the editor prior to the submission deadline. They should write a short abstract
(max. 350 words) that describes the interview they would like to do and specify
the category into which it fits. For more information, inquiries, abstracts, and submissions write to Don Walicek, at walicek@gmail.com. Please include Sargasso 25th in the subject line.
********
Sargasso is a peer-reviewed journal that has been produced at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras since 1984. The journal features work on the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Caribbean and its multiple diasporas.
Please visit: http://humanidades.uprrp.edu/ingles/pubs/sargasso.htm
CALL FOR PAPERS: MACOMÈRE (THE JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF CARIBBEAN WOMEN SCHOLARS)
MACOMÈRE SPECIAL ISSUE: WOMEN & NATIONAL POLITICAL STRUGGLES IN THE CARIBBEAN
Kumari Jayawardena’s examination of feminism and nationalism in the Third World in the mid-1980s clearly demonstrated that far from being merely symbolic of, or subject to, patriarchal constructions of nation, women were actively and variously invested in anti-colonial and national political movements. In this vein, MaComère invites contributions for a special issue on women and national political struggles in the Caribbean. In what ways were women caught up in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, nationalist and revolutionary struggles in the Caribbean, and what did their participation mean? How do various social relations intersect to shape specific iterations of resistance? Where might women be found in the regonal and diasporic networks that inflected various nationalisms? How might we track those legacies across the contemporary Caribbean and what are the current modalities of women’s participation in the political process? While this special issue responds to a sense that we know relatively little about women’s own experiences in relation to these processes, we want to move beyond the addition or recovery of women’s voices to consider the epistemological implications of this endeavour for questions of sovereignty, self-determination, state formation.
We are seeking longer scholarly articles (5000 words) as well as poems and short stories. We also welcome short biographies of women about whom little is documented, and whose example illuminates the theme of this special issue, for a ‘Recovered Lives’ Section (2500 words).
Some examples of possible themes include:
Women and the anti-colonial movement
Diasporic contributions and Caribbean politics
Literary traditions and national consciousness
Revolutionary struggles, anti-dictatorial movements
Women, labour and the state
Reconsidering gender and sovereignty in the non-independent Caribbean
Women’s movements
We seek to achieve a broad regional coverage spanning the main linguistic areas of the Caribbean, highlighting the diverse experiences and socio-political contexts of the Anglophone, Hispanic, Francophone and Dutch Caribbean from the small islands of the archipelago to the mainland Caribbean territories of Central and South America. We especially encourage submissions with a comparative focus. MaComère is a multi-disciplinary journal and as such welcomes historical and contemporary contributions from across the humanities and social sciences as well as contributions from creative writers.
All articles and contributions must be submitted by what date? The issue will be published in what date?
Submission process
If you are interested in making a submission to this special issue, please send a 200 word abstract to Hyacinth Simpson, Editor, hsimpson@english.ryerson.ca and to the guest editors at da.trotz@utoronto.ca (Alissa Trotz, University of Toronto) and kate.quinn@sas.ac.uk (Kate Quinn, Institute for the Study of the Americas). We will then invite your full paper or other contribution for peer review for the journal. For submission criteria go to http://www.macomere.com/submit.html.
MaComère is a refereed journal which is devoted to the scholarly studies and creative works by and about Caribbean Women in the Americas, Europe, and the Caribbean Diaspora. It is the journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars, an organization founded in 1995.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PANELS: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean: The Work of Gordon K. Lewis
Freedom and Power in the Caribbean: The Work of Gordon K. Lewis
UWI, Mona, June 3-5 2010
The Centre for Caribbean Thought (CCT) UWI, Mona, in association with
Africana Studies at Brown University and the Institute of Caribbean Studies,
University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras is proud to host the VIIth Caribbean
Reasonings Conference entitled Freedom and Power in the Caribbean: the Work
of Gordon K. Lewis, to be held June 3-5, 2010 at the University of the West
Indies, Mona. Professor Gordon K. Lewis, (1919 - 1991) taught for many years
at the University of Puerto Rico and wrote path-breaking books on the
Caribbean's history, politics and intellectual development. Texts such as
Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean (1963), The Growth of the
Modern West Indies (1968), and Main Currents in Caribbean Thought: the
historical evolution of Caribbean society in its ideological aspects (1983),
exemplify the breadth of his interests as well as the range and quality of
his output.
Lewis' work transcended the region's linguistic fragmentation and was
consistent with the view that "No one could really claim to be a full
practitioner in Caribbean Studies until he came to write ultimately, on the
Caribbean as a whole." (Main Currents in Caribbean Thought, (1983) Maingot,
introduction vi). This conference in 2010 will reopen inter-territorial
networks to enable studies across language barriers, a goal the Centre for
Caribbean Thought has articulated and continues to realize since 2001
through several conferences and the "Caribbean Reasonings" book series with
Ian Randle Publishers. It will also seek to introduce the seminal work of
Gordon K. Lewis to a new generation of young scholars, interested in moving
beyond constricting national barriers, in order to study the region in its
entirety.
There is limited space on the conference programme for individual papers and
panels, thus we are suggesting that proposals that fall within the following
broad categories will be given serious consideration:
1. Critical examination of Gordon K. Lewis's scholarship, particularly
The Growth of the Modern West Indies; Main Currents in Caribbean Thought;
Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean; and Grenada: the Jewel
Despoiled.
2. Critical work on the present state and the future of social
sciences research in the Caribbean, with particular emphasis on
pan-Caribbean research and inter-disciplinary studies.
3. Critical exploration of the state of Caribbean Thought in the
contemporary period beyond Lewis' assessment in Main Currents in Caribbean
Thought
4. The state of politics in the Caribbean, forty years beyond The
Growth of the Modern West Indies.
5. The existential condition of Caribbean Intellectuals and
intellectualism in the 21st century.
6. Reflections on the Grenada Revolution and Lewis' assessment of its
collapse in Grenada: the Jewel Despoiled.
7. Critical reflection on the state and status of Puerto Rico, beyond
Lewis' analysis in Puerto Rico: Freedom and Power in the Caribbean.
8. Critical analysis of the state and future of Pan Caribbeanism and
integration movements.
9. Sports, culture and the future of Caribbean unity.
Abstracts should be sent as a Word attachment to Beverley Sutherland Lewis
at: cct@uwimona.edu.jm
FINAL date for submission: December 15, 2009
Hosted by: The Centre for Caribbean Thought, UWI, Mona, The Institute of
Caribbean Studies, University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras and the Africana
Studies Department, Brown University, Rhode Island.
Humberto García Muñiz, Ph. D.
Director
Instituto de Estudios del Caribe
Universidad de Puerto Rico
Recinto de Rio Piedras
POB 23361
San Juan, PR 00931-3361
tel. 787-764-0000, x-4212, 787-763-2943
fax. 787-764-3099
<mailto:hgarcia@prw.net> hgarcia@prw.net
SARGASSO CALL FOR PAPERS –
Puerto Ricans in
St. Croix: language, Culture, and Community
submission deadline December 17, 2009
SARGASSO, a
Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture is accepting submissions for an upcoming issue with
the preliminary title "Puerto Ricans in St. Croix." Research on Caribbean languages (especially Creoles and
contact languages) in fields of inquiry such as migration studies, cultural
studies, sociolinguistics, anthropological linguistics, linguistic ethnography,
and historical linguistics is welcome, as is work that is interdisciplinary in
nature.
A history of
constant flows characterizes Puerto Rican migration to the U.S. Virgin Islands,
particularly the largely English-speaking island of St. Croix (Rabin, 1988). The
first massive migratory wave of the twentieth century took place in the 1920s
and was composed mainly of individuals and families who settled in the newly
acquired territory due to an economic crisis that followed the establishment of
two US military bases on the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra. In
response to the growing numbers of Spanish-speaking students, the Department of
Education was forced to offer bilingual education to the newcomers. Puerto Rico
was the closest territory to recruit teachers, a situation that resulted in a
second migratory wave with origins that go back to as early as 1918 (Murphy,
1977) and extend into the 1980s. Today the movement among the Puerto Rican
mainland, Vieques, and St. Croix continues. It has created a unique migratory community that it shaped by
ongoing and highly complex processes of cultural and linguistic contact across
these non-independent territories.
Given that the
contemporary situation and its history still remains underdocumented, this
issue of Sargasso aims to encourage the
discussion of these and closely related topics. Themes
that might be addressed include, but are not limited to:
– Language ideologies & language
attitudes
– Language, race, & symbolic violence
– Bilingualism & multilingualism
– Sociohistorical ethnography
– Demographics & language change
– Migration and diasporic communities
– The politics of identity & ethnicity
– Processes of identity formation
– Stories and histories of migration
– Language & political economy
– Cultural contact & hybridity
Essays
should be 10-20 pages and double-spaced.
Abstracts of 120 words or less should accompany essays. B & W
photos, illustrations, and other graphics can be included. Book reviews and review essays
of recent scholarship on the Caribbean are also welcome. They should be approximately 1,000 and
2,000 words in length, respectively.
For submissions send to: sargasso@uprrp.edu
Sargasso has been edited at the University of
Puerto Rico, Río Piedras for more than 20 years. The journal features
work on the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Caribbean and its
multiple diasporas.
For more information visit:
http://humanidades.uprrp.edu/ingles/pubs/sargasso.htm
Caribbean Enlightenment
An Interdisciplinary Caribbean Studies Conference, 8th to 10th April 2010, University of Glasgow.
Keynote Speakers: J. Michael Dash, Paget Henry, and Nick Nesbitt.
This conference aims to explore the various ways in which the site of the Caribbean, with its writers, artists, revolutionaries, and diverse peoples, has adapted and questioned the legacies of the Enlightenment. Acknowledging the Caribbean’s crucial role in the Atlantic world, the Enlightenment’s history of empire building and slave rebellions, colonial domination and postcolonial nation-building, the valorization of reason and its role in the division of knowledge, will be interrogated against the dissemination of a discourse promoting universal human rights, democracy and equality. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives on Enlightenment themes, both historical and contemporary, this conference will bring together Anglophone, Francophone and Hispanophone perspectives that explore figurations of the universal within the Caribbean context. Noting the region’s national and linguistic divides, this conference will expose the ways in which Enlightenment ideals have been adapted to express the particular experience of the Caribbean peoples.
For full details of the current call for papers and panel suggestions, click here.
Please send panel proposals and/or paper abstracts (300 words) with a brief biographical statement (150 words) to Lorna Burns and Michael Morris at caribbeanenlightenment@googlemail.com by 1st December 2009.
The 2010 Annual Conference of the Caribbean Chapter of the College English Association, Friday, March 19 and Saturday, March 20 at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras in San Juan
Boundaries and Bridges: English Studies in the Borderlands
The Mission Statement of the College English Association (CEA) informs members that the organization acts as an umbrella under which a broad range of interests gather together, including: literature, language, linguistics, composition, creative writing, women's and minority studies, journalism, technical communication, speech, American studies, English as a Second Language, and popular culture, among others. In light of this mission statement that embraces multiple disciplines, the Caribbean Chapter of the CEA—situated in a unique location that synthesizes the Caribbean islands and their varied cultures with North and Latin American, European, African, and indigenous traditions—invites papers for its annual conference that explore meeting places between the disciplines of English Studies, interdisciplinary studies in the field of English, and the borderlands of space and place as explored through the disciplines that comprise English Studies.
Proposals are welcome on, but not limited to, the following topics:
• Caribbean Studies;
• Postcolonial and/or Colonial Studies;
• Texts that exist in or explore Borderlands or Contact Zones (please note that we welcome diverse definitions of the term “texts”);
• Bilingual and/or bicultural texts;
• Cultural Geography Studies;
• Transnational, Transatlantic, and/or Transpacific Studies;
• Interdisciplinary texts such as graphic novels, films, and blogs;
• Interdisciplinary studies of canonical texts;
• Interdisciplinary pedagogies in English Studies classrooms;
• Creoles, Pidgins, and languages that build upon different linguistic heritages;
• New Media and new technologies in the English classroom; and
• The field of English at the crossroads.
Submit 250 word abstracts outlining your 15 minute proposed presentation by November 13, 2009 to the Conference Coordinators at cea.cc.conference@gmail.com. For more information, please visit the CEA-CC’s Blog (http://blogs.uprm.edu/ceacc/).
Special Issue of Global Development Studies
THEME:
The Global Financial and Economic Crisis: Implications for the Caribbean Region
Global Development Studies intends to publish a special issue focusing on the Caribbean region in summer 2010. This issue will analyze the theoretical and policy implications of the current global financial and economic crisis for the Caribbean region.
Summary of Main Issues:
Problems in the United States' mortgage market have engendered the biggest global financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial crisis, which originated in the U.S. and European markets, have been transformed into a global economic crisis. Problems originating in the financial sector have spread to the real sector, and with profound implications for the global economy.
Implications of the Crisis for the Global Economy:
■ Policy Responses and Macroeconomic Consequences:
While the unprecedented easing of monetary policy, fiscal expansion and stimulus have averted a systemic collapse of the global financial system, pro-cyclical policy responses have only addressed systemic risks and they have failed to address structural problems in the global economy.
■ Problems that go Beyond the Conduct of Monetary Policy and Financial Regulation:
▪ The global economy is now experiencing the sharpest decline in output and international trade in the post Second World War period.
▪ The crisis is reversing the gains made in the last 15 years relative to global economic integration.
▪ There has been a simultaneous decline in economic growth among the developed and developing economies.
▪ Global institutions and regulatory regimes have largely been rendered ineffective in addressing the current global economic challenges.
▪ There has been a precipitous decline in private capital flows and foreign direct investments to developing economies.
▪ Trade barriers and protectionist measures are increasing, and there has been no progress in breaking the impasse regarding the stalled Doha Round multilateral trade negotiations.
Suggested Topics and Areas:
Consideration will be given to contributions addressing theoretical and policy issues relating to the current global economic crisis.
Contributions that examine the wider social, economic and political implications of the crisis for the Caribbean region are especially welcomed.
Analyses of the following issues will also receive special consideration:
▪ Global economic regimes (institutions): assessing their effectiveness in addressing structural problems and new challenges in the global economy
▪ Assessing the impact of the global policy responses to the financial crisis on the Caribbean region
▪ Implications of the crisis for regional strategies designed to achieve sustainable growth and regional integration.
▪ Caribbean institutional and policy responses to the crisis
▪ Impact on private capital flows and FDI to the Caribbean region
▪ Impact on remittance flows to the Caribbean region
▪ The role of the multilateral trading system in the context of the current economic recession
Instructions for Potential Contributors and Projected Publication Schedule:
Submission of Abstracts: Interested contributors should submit their abstracts of no more than 200 words to the managing editor no later than December 1, 2009. In addition to the proposed title, each abstract should include the objectives and organization of the study and the conceptual framework.
Submission Deadline for the First Draft of Each Article: The first draft of each article should be submitted for external review no later than March 31, 2010. Two anonymous readers will review each article submitted. Contributors should submit an electronic copy of their manuscripts in Microsoft Word.
A sample copy of a previous issue of the journal will be sent to potential contributors upon request. Each issue of the journal contains specific instructions for contributors.
Submission Deadline for Final Drafts of All Articles: Final Drafts of all articles selected for publication should be submitted electronically no later than July 31, 2010.
Projected Publication Date: September 30, 2010.
Mailing Address:
Managing Editor, Global Development Studies
C/O International Development Options
912 Falcon Drive, Largo, MD 20774
United States of America
E-mail: idoresearch@att.net
Tel: 301-350-3910
Fax: 301-350-1056
CFP for panel
DEVELOPMENT & INEQUALITY IN THE CONTEMPORARY CARIBBEAN
Proposed conference panel to be submitted to the
SOCIETY FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES Annual Conference
University of Bristol 9th-10th April, 2010.
Panel Convenors: Kate Quinn (ISA) and David Howard (University of Edinburgh)
Panel Proposal:
Caribbean societies have not escaped the effects of the global financial crisis. Circumstances of territorial and demographic scale, insularity and enduring relations of dependency make the region particularly exposed to the economic, political and social effects of the international downturn. Across the region, governments face a combination of decreasing investment, tax revenue, exports, remittances and income from tourism, matched by increased indebtedness. Many Caribbean countries ‘are now the most indebted in the world’ (Clegg 2009).
The political and social consequences of the current economic situation are manifold. Within the last couple of years, many Caribbean societies have witnessed civil protests over everyday living conditions: food riots in Haiti led to the resignation of the prime minister, while general strikes and demonstrations over low wages and the high price of basic commodities in Guadeloupe and Martinique exposed deep racialised and class disparities in the French Caribbean territories.
This panel will explore the many implications for the Caribbean (economic, political, social and cultural) of the current economic crisis, examining the responses of governments and citizens alike. We welcome papers from across the Caribbean, from pan-Caribbean and comparative perspectives, and on the experiences of both independent and non-independent states. As David Jessop has argued, ‘the global recession… may well force the region to confront the unresolved contradictions of its historic commitment to social provision and equity with its apparently universal commitment to growth, the market, and the desire to consume... In short, the economic crisis highlights the need to resolve the contradictions of nationalism, small economies, social commitment, open markets… and a regional economic integration process in which regional governance or authority is lacking’ (Jessop 2009).
Papers from across the humanities and social sciences are welcomed.
DEADLINE: Please submit 200-word abstracts for paper proposals to kate.quinn@sas.ac.uk and david.howard@ed.ac.uk by 15th December, 2009. Please include affiliation and contact details.
For information on the SLAS conference see http://www.bris.ac.uk/hispanic/slas2010
XVII ISA WORLD CONGRESS OF SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY ON THE MOVE GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN 11 - 17 JULY, 2010
RC 32 Abstract Submission
GOTHENBURG SESSIONS
RC05 Abstract Submission
Indo-Caribbean Literature and Culture 2010
Centre for Caribbean Studies,
University of Warwick
1st-2nd of July 2010
To mark the foundation of the Indo-Caribbean Studies Association, the Centre for Caribbean Studies at the University of Warwick is hosting its second interdisciplinary conference on Indo-Caribbean Literature and Culture.
Indentureship propelled over half-a-million Indians across the kala pani to take root all over the world, negotiating new physical and figurative spaces for themselves and their descendants. The contribution of this widely-distributed Indian population to global culture and literature is substantial, and is particularly pronounced in the case of the Caribbean. Encompassing art, music, cuisine, religion, and more, the Indian presence is indelibly inscribed on the social, cultural, political and physical landscape of the region; emerging from their fascinating history is a wealth of creative writing and scholarly works.
The flourishing of Indo-Caribbean literature and creativity over the past twenty years, exemplified by the renown of V. S. Naipaul and reinforced by the work of critically acclaimed authors such as Cyril Dabydeen, Mahadai Das, Ramabai Espinet, Roy Heath, Ismith Khan, Shiva Naipaul, Sam Selvon, and many more, has served to draw critical focus towards the unique and diverse elements of Indian life in the Caribbean and elsewhere. The postcolonial intersections of Indo-Caribbean experience provide a generative platform for critical and theoretical discourses, incorporating hybridity, hyphenated identities, neo-colonialism, eco-criticism, coolitude, cross-cultural transfer, gender construction and beyond.
This event welcomes papers across the theoretical spectrum of Indo-Caribbean studies, and aims to investigate new avenues of research in the field. What impact have recent developments in postcolonial cultural theory had on our understanding of Indo-Caribbean experience? Conversely, what distinctive contribution does Indo-Caribbean literature make to a broader understanding of postcolonial cultures?
Topics for consideration might include but are not limited to:
Negotiation of Indo-Caribbean identities
Memory, migration and exile
Indian women in the Caribbean
Politics and labour
Gender and sexuality
Religion and ritual
Ecology and environment
Language
Survival and revival of visual arts
Submissions: Proposals are invited from established and new scholars, including postgraduate researchers. 300-word abstracts should be sent to L.Gramaglia@warwick.ac.uk and should arrive by 21st December 2009. Acceptance will be notified by 1st February 2010. To register for the conference please contact M.R.Tumbridge@warwick.ac.uk or Joseph.Jackson@warwick.ac.uk.
2nd. International Conference on Caribbean Studies (ICCS)
II Conferencia Internacional en Estudios Caribeños
Afromodernisms 1: Re-encounters with the French and Anglo-Atlantic Worlds, 1907-61.
Symposium: University of Liverpool, UK.
Confirmed Keynote: Professor David Scott, Columbia University, NY
Thursday 15th April - Saturday 17th April, 2010.
First Call for papers: Closing date for call: 21 January, 2010.
In the context provided by Paul Gilroy's configuration of the black Atlantic as a counterculture to modernity, this symposium is the first in a series seeking to re-examine the Atlantic as a locale for the emergence of modernism. Over the period 2010-12, we hope to consider the centrality of black folk, artists, writers, intellectuals, social scientists, musicians, as core members of the modernist avant-garde, and of "blackness" as a key representative and political category in the work of other modernists. We begin from a formulation of modernism as a heterogenous cluster of responses to locally specific experiences of modernity, rather than as a qualitative set of aesthetic indicators privileging formal innovation over political rhetoric. In doing so, we hope to enable further discussion of a widening spectrum of modernist languages in which the experience of modernity is delineated and inscribed.
The symposium addresses the interactions, exchanges, conflicts, and collaborations occurring across the French and Anglo Atlantic, and within experienced and imagined spaces of blackness, in the period 1907-61. We begin therefore with Picasso's masked Demoiselles, and end with the publication of Fanon's radical rejection of western colonialism in Les damnés. The aims of the symposium are fourfold:
First, it seeks to stage a re-encounter with avant-garde aesthetic, political and social practice in the context of black responses to modernity across the French and Anglo Atlantic.
Second, it explores the emergence of new disciplines or schools, and underexplored interdisciplinary relationships in the human sciences that may have effected or at least contributed to the formal innovation or "newness" considered so characteristic of modernism.
Third, it takes Perry Anderson's claim that one of the indispensible co-ordinates for locating modernism is its "proximity to social revolution" and resituates it in the context of an anti-colonial avant-garde operating across the Atlantic in the inter- and postwar years.
Fourth, it considers the degree to which a variety of actors operating from what might be termed "alternative" or "displaced" metropoles interacted to produce, in Jameson's terms, an "active sense" of the history of modernity, one in which a black presence was of key aesthetic, political and cultural importance.
Individual papers and proposals, in English, for panels addressing any aspect of the interrelationship between Afromodernism and the French and Anglo-Atlantic worlds are invited from, but not limited to, the disciplines of literature, anthropology, history, art history, philosophy, music, or combinations of these; and concerning regions including but not limited to: Africa, the Caribbean, insular and continental Europe, Canada, the United States, Latin America. Teaching or curating panels and papers are also welcomed.
Topics might include:
The Harlem Renaissance/New Negro; Performance and/of blackness; Expressionism; fascism; exoticism; the tropics; ethnographic fieldwork narratives/collections; the WPA; négritude; negrophilia; World War 1; configurations of the Black Atlantic; masking; marxism and modernity; World War 2; primitivism; folk and established religious expression; jazz; blues; surrealism; Boasian anthropology; tragedy; Windrush; aesthetic politics; drumming; new histories; revisionist historiography; beauty; comedy; revolution and anticolonialism; myth; reaction; gender and modernity; nationalism; the metropole(s); psychoanalysis; science and relativism; positivism; migration and/or displacement; civilization; degeneration.
Proposal for panels should contain a panel title, working titles for individual papers, with individual abstracts of 250 words each, and brief biographical notes on the chair and/or speakers. For individual papers, please send a working title, abstract of 250-350 words, and a biographical note to: Fionnghuala Sweeney: fsweeney@liv.ac.uk<mailto:fsweeney@liv.ac.uk> or Kate Marsh: clmarsh@liv.ac.uk<mailto:clmarsh@liv.ac.uk>
Afromodernism 1 occurs against the backdrop the exhibition, Modernism and the Black Atlantic, January - May 2010, curated by Tate Liverpool, and placing work by American, Caribbean, African and European artists in relation to one another and the Atlantic context in which they worked. Delegates will have the opportunity to visit the exhibition during the course of the symposium.
