This call for papers invites contributors to submit papers for publication in a university press. The anthology will gather analyses focusing on writers, artists, and others who have engaged with or represented aspects of a Black past. We are seeking works in literature, film, music, art, or any other relevant fields that incorporate elements of the Black past in a broad sense.

The anthology will include cultural and historical expressive literary forms involved by writers/artists who address connections to an ancestral past. This anthology aims to compile various uses of Black antiquity as a concept and used as an emplotment that is purposeful in terms of contending with various pejoratives. The anthology will include writings that depict aspects of the past and works that cover, embed, gather, or portray lineage ties or dissociation, heritage unions or detachment which have been contemporized into perceived ties and identities. We invite contributors to assess expressed thoughts in writing, art, film, music, etc. that capture the present alongside a formulated past. This call for papers seeks submissions across several genres, all aimed at ancestral reception and its uses revealed in text with functional meaning. 

Please note accepted abstracts will be notified promptly. Again, this anthology is being prepared for a literary series of a university press. Please send your name, institutional affiliation, and abstract with title heading to serrano@udel.edu by August 1, 2025.

Contact Information

serrano@udel.edu