african-american

RSS feed

Black South Joy

updated: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - 3:26pm
Society for the Study of Southern Literature MLA Session
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, March 25, 2023

Society for the Study of Southern Literature MLA 2024 Call for Papers

Given the presidential theme Celebration: Joy and Sorrow, this panel will explore the topic of “Black South Joy.”

So much of the popular discourse about the South, and about the experience of Blackness in the South particularly, revolves around narratives of white supremacist violence. As scholars of southern literature, we spend much of our time encountering Saidiya Hartman’s “scenes of subjection” in the works of both white and Black authors alike. And yet, even in the darkest moments, Black folks in the South have created rituals of celebration, not only as acts of resistance, but as reflections of the simple fact of their humanity.

Not Without Laughter: Langston Hughes and His Contemporaries [MLA2024]

updated: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - 3:25pm
Langston Hughes Society
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 31, 2023

CFP: Langston Hughes Society Panel at the Modern Language Association

January 4-7, 2024, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 

Not Without Laughter: Langston Hughes and His Contemporaries

The Langston Hughes Society is pleased to invite proposals for a guaranteed session to be held at the 2024 Modern Language Association Convention (MLA2024) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

 

Australasian Journal of American Studies 2023 Call for Submissions

updated: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - 3:24pm
The University of Sydney
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, April 9, 2023

The Australasian Journal of American Studies or AJAS (ISSN 0705-7113) is the official journal of the Australian and New Zealand American Studies Association. It aims to publish the best submissions from around the world on all themes and all periods relating to United States history, culture, politics, film, literature, and society. We are currently seeking book and film, documentary and television reviews for our 2023 issues, scheduled for July and December. We also invite EoIs from prospective contributors to our peer-reviewed section of articles, though these would be scheduled for our late 2023 or 2024 issues.

MLA 2024: The Burden and Privilege of HBCU Graduate Students in the Anti-CRT Era

updated: 
Thursday, March 9, 2023 - 11:35am
Austin Anderson / Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Humanities
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, March 25, 2023

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) serve a vital function within academia, particularly for the predominantly Black student body that these historic institutions serve. There are at least 74 HBCUs that offer degrees in English, Languages, or Literature, including 10 HBCUs that offer Master or Doctoral degrees in these subjects. Some of the leading scholars of our disciplines graduated from HBCUs with at least “9 percent of full-time Black faculty earned their doctorate degrees from HBCUs [with] more than half returning to HBCUs as faculty members” (Perna, 2001).

[UPDATE] Anger: Special issue of The Comparatist

updated: 
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - 9:06am
The Comparatist
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, April 1, 2023

Call for Papers: Special Issue, The Comparatist

Topic: Anger

General Editor: Zahi Zalloua (Whitman College)

 

Hemispheric Connections: Collaboration, Critique, Community and the Black Diaspora in the Americas

updated: 
Tuesday, March 7, 2023 - 4:46pm
Afro-Latin/American Research Association (ALARA)
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 20, 2023

Community is at the heart of solidarity. To build community is to be willing to both critique its very essence and collaborate with others to strengthen the bonds. This conference seeks to explore and highlight interactions and connections by examining solidarities, tensions, and community building among the Black diaspora throughout the Americas and beyond.

Presentations that highlight the successes and joy of Black/Afro-descendant communities, resistance, activism, and cultural production as well as interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome. ALARA is a multidisciplinary organization and welcomes presentations from all fields (humanities, social sciences, health sciences, etc.).

James Baldwin at 100: A Roundtable

updated: 
Tuesday, March 7, 2023 - 4:38pm
Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 20, 2023

James Baldwin at 100: A Roundtable(MLA 2024 Convention, Jan 4-7; Philadelphia, PA)

 

Commemorating the centennial of Baldwin's birth, this roundtable examines his autobiographical writings, as well as his impact on Black / queer / transnational life writing. Email 250-word abstracts and bio to McKinley Melton (mmelton@gettysburg.edu) by 3/20/2023. (Panel co-sponsored by the MLA African American Literature Forum, the MLA Life Writing Forum, and the College Language Association) 

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Global Authoritarianisms and the Arts

updated: 
Friday, March 3, 2023 - 2:26pm
Department of English
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Global Authoritarianisms and the Arts
12th Annual Shifting Tides Anxious Borders Conference
Hosted by the English Department, Binghamton University–SUNY

Date of Conference: April 29, 2023
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jini Kim Watson, NYU

“Putting Our Faith in Institutions”: Religion and Literature Permanent Section

updated: 
Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 4:52pm
Midwest Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Saturday, April 15, 2023

This year, MMLA’s general call questions what the academy “owe[s] democracy,” namely how academics engage with shared truths. In keeping with the general call, the Religion and Literature permanent section invites proposals that examine how authors interrogate institutionalized systems of belief. 

 

Those aspiring to be on the panel should feel empowered to offer proposals that interpret the concept of religion rather loosely by potentially including the academy as an institution of belief. Maintaining a broad interpretation of religion to include all intersections of faith, folklore, belief, and literature, expressions of belief may include creeds, mottos, mission statements, the constitution, charters, manifestos, doctrines, etc. 

Rebellious Affects: Black Joy, Pleasure, and Happiness as Counterabjection

updated: 
Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 2:52pm
Joanna Davis-McElligatt, University of North Texas
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

How can we harness of the power of Black joy? How have Black thinkers, scholars, and artists turned their attention to forms of Black happiness as a critical and necessary affectual response to the logics of Black death? How can we describe—and make meaningful—the radical potential of Black happiness and joy as antidotes to the overwhelming logics of Black death and destruction? While keeping in view the manifold ways Black life is denigrated, devalued, and destroyed, this panel seeks to explore representations of Black bliss, tenderness, pleasure, jubilation, mirth, and exhilaration.

Performing to Reimagine: Enactment & Activism in 21st century Museums

updated: 
Monday, February 27, 2023 - 9:23am
Aileen Robinson and Gwyneth Shanks
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, May 1, 2023

Performing to Reimagine:
Enactment & Activism in 21st century MuseumsSpecial Issue Editors: Aileen Robinson and Gwyneth ShanksEssay Submission Deadline: May 1, 2023

Desire and Distaste in Culinary Culture

updated: 
Monday, February 27, 2023 - 12:37am
MLA 2024 Convention
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 20, 2023

CFP for the MLA 2024 Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA)

Conference Dates: January 4th to 7th 2024

Future Souths--MLA 2024 CFP

updated: 
Friday, February 24, 2023 - 10:19am
MLA 2024 LLC Southern US Forum
deadline for submissions: 
Tuesday, March 15, 2022

Going against tenacious perceptions of the south as firmly rooted to the past, we argue for a vision of multicultural, diverse souths oriented towards the future. At times, southern futurism has been a force of oppression, including the technological innovations of the plantation; the rebranding of Atlanta as a place where commerce could ignore racism or complicate it as a model of true global exchange; or the militaristic and privatized response to Hurricane Katrina that foreshadows a disaster-capitalist approach to climate change. However, the south’s overlapping histories of decolonial and anti-racist activism have always imagined progressive futures.

Conference: Digital Humanities Against Dark Times

updated: 
Friday, February 24, 2023 - 10:19am
Vanderbilt University Center for the Digital Humanities, Nashville, TN
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, March 5, 2023

Conference: Digital Humanities Against Dark Times

Dates:  April 14 – 15, 2023

Location: Vanderbilt University Center for the Digital Humanities, Nashville, TN

Abstract Deadline: March 5, 2023

 

We are pleased to share that the Center for Digital Humanities is hosting a two-day conference titled “Digital Humanities Against Dark Times” this upcoming April 14 – 15, 2023. This conference provides a venue for early-career scholars to discuss digital humanities work that engages with emerging and ongoing crises of our moment, such as:

No, This Is America: Interrogating Bad Faith Narratives, Epistemologies of Ignorance, Grammars of Violence, and Selective Racial Memories in a Post-Truth, Post-Shame, and Post-Accountable United States

updated: 
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 11:38am
Professing Education Journal
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, July 31, 2023

Where is that place where what should not ‘happen to nobody’ happens every day? Why is it that, in so many places found in every corner of the global space, so many human beings face that which ‘no one deserves’?

—Ferreira da Silva (2009, p. 212) 

You better understand White people’s fantasies because tomorrow they’ll be legislation

—Jared Sexton, invoked by Frank Wilderson (2020)

I have only one solution: to rise above this absurd drama that others have staged around me

—Fanon (2013, p. 153) 

This is America. Don’t catch you slippin’ now.

—Childish Gambino, This is America (2018)

Political Oratory and African American Literature

updated: 
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 11:27am
Modern Language Association
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 13, 2023

I am proposing an MLA 2024 special session on "Political Oratory and African American Literature."  Papers will examine speeches by elected officials as contributions to African American literary discourse.  Please email 300-word abstracts to matthewcalihman@missouristate.edu by March 13.

1st International Conference on English Language and Literature, Loneliness and Isolation in Literature (DIDE2023)

updated: 
Wednesday, February 22, 2023 - 11:09am
Doğuş University
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, April 10, 2023

We are pleased to announce to you that Doğuş University, Department of English Language and Literature will be holding the 1st International English Language and Literature Conference between 12 - 14 May 2023. By sharing your valuable works in meetings and presentations throughout the conference, we are fully confident that we will achieve our symposium goals and achieve significant successes, thanks to the interactive discussion environment that will emerge. Abstracts (about 250 words), with the name of the author, institutional affiliation, contact address (e-mail), and a brief bio-note should be sent to the conference organizers by 10 April 2023 at the following address:

dide2023@dogus.edu.tr

DEADLINE EXTENDED: In Living Color: Exploring the Complexities of Colorism within the U.S. and Around the World in the 21st-Century

updated: 
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 5:09pm
The Journal of Colorism Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 6, 2023

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line, the question as to how far differences of race-which show themselves chiefly in the color of the skin and the texture of the hair-will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.

—W.E.B. Du Bois (1900)

 

Are there multiple forms or species of racism or simply variations of a fundamental structure?

—Jared Sexton (2012)

 

I have only one solution: to rise above this absurd drama that others have staged around me

—Fanon (1952)

Archiving Black Women's Joys and Sorrows

updated: 
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 9:10am
MLA 2024 Special Session
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, March 15, 2023

The relationship between Black women and the archive has long been fraught. We invite 250-word proposals for papers that probe Black women writers' literary and/or theoretical negotiations with these realities.

 

Please submit a 250-word abstract and a short bio by March 15th, 2023, to N. Morris Johnson at nmmorris@buffalo.edu. For more information about the MLA conference, please visit https://www.mla.org/Convention/MLA-2024/Presidential-Theme-for-the-2024-Convention

EJAS (European Journal of American Studies): Call for book reviews

updated: 
Thursday, February 16, 2023 - 9:09am
European Association for American Studies
deadline for submissions: 
Sunday, December 31, 2023

EJAS (European Journal of American Studies): Call for book reviews

EJAS (European Journal of American Studies) invites reviews of current books on topics relevant to American studies for publication in EJAS’ upcoming issues (vol. 18-19) due in 2023 and 2024. 

Please send a review proposal (author, title, publisher, publishing date and place, number of pages), and CV (including the list of publications) to the Book Reviews Editor, Dr. Kornelia Boczkowska (kornelia@amu.edu.pl). We accept proposals on a rolling basis.

Authors of accepted proposals will be expected to write a book review (1000 words) and follow the MLA 8th edition style manual when preparing the manuscript.

Working through the Federal Writers’ Project: Labor, Place, Archive, and Representation

updated: 
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 12:27pm
Maureen Curtin and Michele Fazio
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, May 31, 2023

This proposed volume of interdisciplinary essays reexamines the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) as a labor project. We are working with a publisher to feature this book, Working through the Federal Writers’ Project: Labor, Place, Archive, and Representation, as part of a potential series on the FWP,  on the burgeoning field of FWP studies, and on how FWP studies fits in the larger framework of labor studies. Labor, in this sense, is not a narrow category. It encompasses trade unions, working conditions, labor power, political economy, and the everyday reality of working lives.

Joys and Sorrows of Black Geographies

updated: 
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 11:32am
Modern Language Association 2024 Annual Convention Philadelphia
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, March 20, 2023

This panel explores Black geographies (both real and imagined) of joy/sorrow in African American literature, examining how geographic thought, speculation, and practice produce joys/sorrows for Black subjects and communities. Send a 200-word abstract and CV.

Dorottya Mozes, University of Debrecen

 

A Cultural Experience: The Role of Theatre at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (an edited volume)

updated: 
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 11:22am
Khalid Y. Long and DeRon S. Williams
deadline for submissions: 
Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Since their inception dating back to as early as 1829, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have continuously represented the notion of possibility and hope for African Americans. As an initial action, these organizations emphasized the educational improvement of Blacks at the elementary and secondary levels. Since the creation of the first HBCU, these institutions of academic excellence have transformed exclusively into postsecondary institutions, ultimately forming a network where thousands of African descendants could obtain an education that they otherwise could not afford due to years of educational suppression and segregation in higher education.

MLA 2024 Special Session: Bob Dylan's Blues: Blues Poetics and American Memory

updated: 
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 11:22am
Robert Reginio/Special Session MLA 2024
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 24, 2023

Bob Dylan's Blues: Blues Poetics and American Memory I am seeking  abstracts between 200-400 words for a panel on Dylan's incorporation, use, and revision of blues music especially in the context of theorists of blues poetics such as Houston Baker, Angela Davis, and Fred Moten. Most existing scholarship on Dylan's use of blues music remains informed by the work of writers and critics such as Sam Charters, Michael Gray, Greil Marcus, and Alan Lomax. This work often favors a conceptualization of the blues as a distant,  pre-modern source of "authentic" soundings.

Call for Chapters -- August Wilson in Context

updated: 
Friday, February 10, 2023 - 11:18am
Khalid Y. Long and Isaiah M. Wooden
deadline for submissions: 
Monday, February 20, 2023

CALL FOR CHAPTERS

August Wilson in Context

Edited by Khalid Y. Long and Isaiah Matthew Wooden

 

Samuel R. Delany and the City

updated: 
Thursday, February 2, 2023 - 3:55pm
Modern Language Association 2024 Annual Convention
deadline for submissions: 
Friday, March 10, 2023

Samuel R. Delany and the City Samuel Delany has strong ties to New York City and Philadelphia. Not surprisingly, many of his major works investigate cities. We seek papers on the city throughout Delany's work. 200 word abstracts; brief bio

Deadline for submissions: Friday, 10 March 2023

Daniel Shank Cruz, Hunter College, CUNY (danielshankcruz@gmail.com)  https://mla.confex.com/mla/2024/webprogrampreliminary/Paper22607.html 

Pages