"New Directions in Africana Literature" - Abstract Deadline 6/10/15 - SAMLA 87 Conference (November 13-15)
"New Directions in Africana Literature"
This panel welcomes papers that explore the contours and contexts of contemporary Africana Literature. We invite presenters to consider potential new scholarly directions for emerging writers of African descent as well as established writers whose recent works address the imperatives of the current moment. We especially welcome papers that address the SAMLA 87 theme ("In Concert: Literature and the Other Arts"). Other themes that panelists might address in their work include, but are not limited to:
· Contemporary literary works that challenge or disrupt conventional understandings of form and/or genre
· Emergent literary platforms for publication and the relationship of literature to social media, digital publishing, multi-media distribution, etc.
· Contemporary definitions/articulations of Blackness and literary confrontations with themes of post-blackness and post-raciality
· 21st Century re-imaginings of "diaspora" and global understandings of race and identity
· Literary responses to #BlackLivesMatter and other contemporary political movements
· Intersectional explorations of race and gender, sexuality, class, etc.
· Africana writers' revaluation, reaffirmation, and/or rejection of longstanding black cultural traditions and social, political, and cultural institutions
By June 10, please send abstracts (250-300 words) and brief bio to McKinley Melton (mmelton@gettysburg.edu) or Shauna Morgan Kirlew (shauna.kirlew@howard.edu).
Participants will be notified of panel acceptance by June 17th. The 87th Annual SAMLA Conference will be held in Durham, NC, from November 13-15, 2015.