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Transatlantic Exchange: African Americans and the Celtic Nations

In his introduction to the thirtieth anniversary edition of Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison described the gestation of his seminal novel and recalled
publishing a story entitled 'In a Strange Country' 'in which a young
African American seaman, ashore in Swansea, South Wales, was forced to
grapple with the troublesome 'American' aspects of his identity.' This
conference - taking place in Ellison's 'strange country' and in the town
where he was stationed during the Second World War - aims to grapple with
some of the 'troublesome' aspects of African American and Celtic identities,
and to explore moments of interaction, of correspondence, of hostility and
of attraction between cultural traditions. To evoke the idea of a 'Celtic'
or 'African American' identity is already to invite controversy. The
conference seeks, however, to encourage transatlantic approaches that move
out of self-enclosed, exceptionalist, models in exploring specific moments
of interaction that are often completely ignored when a merely 'British' or
'American' perspective is brought to bear.

The Keynote Speakers are:

Professor John F. Callahan, Lewis and Clark College, Oregon, USA.

Dr. Glenn Jordan, University of Glamorgan, Wales

Professor Werner Sollors, Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA.
(provisional).

Professor Jeffrey C. Stewart, George Mason University, Virginia, USA.

Possible topics for paper or panel proposals might include, but are no means
limited to:

The role of the Celts in the slave trade

African American abolitionists in Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

Pan-Africanism and Pan-Celticism

The use of 'Celtic' identities in the American South

The Harlem and Celtic Renaissances

Responses by Ida B. Wells, Paul Robeson, Ralph Ellison and others to their
visits to Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The idea of the 'folk' in Black and Celtic cultural and political thought.

Gender, Ethnicity and Nationalism

Boxing and Sport.

African Americans and the making of Black Celtic, or Afro-Celtic,
identities.

Black and Celtic Marxisms / Nationalisms / Feminisms / Religious Traditions.

Influences and correspondences between literary and political traditions.

African American texts in Welsh and Gaelic translations.

The case for comparative and transatlantic models in relation to Celtic and
African American studies.

The main language of the conference will be English, but proposals for
papers/panels in Welsh are also welcome.

Conference website:
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/english/crew/transatlanticexchange
<http://www.swansea.ac.uk/english/crew/transatlanticexchange>

Please submit abstracts of not more than 250 words by Friday 29th of
September 2006 to
Dr. Daniel Williams, CREW (Centre for Research into the English Literature
and Language of Wales), Department of English, University of Wales Swansea,
Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, Wales UK.

 <mailto:daniel.g.williams_at_swansea.ac.uk> daniel.g.williams_at_swansea.ac.uk

 
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Received on Mon May 15 2006 - 12:35:00 EDT