[URBANTH-L] CFP: Pan-Africanisms: The Work of Diaspora ... (graduate student conference, Yale)

Angela Jancius acjancius at ysu.edu
Tue Dec 20 00:58:20 EST 2005


Call for Papers

Pan-Africanisms: The Work of Diaspora Within and Without the Academy
*Submissions must be received by January 9, 2006

 The African American Studies Department at Yale University invites
submissions for a graduate student conference that will be held April 20-22,
2006 in New Haven, CT. The conference, Pan-Africanisms: The Work of Diaspora
Within and Without the Academy, will provide a forum for emergent voices in
the field to address the constructions of nationalism, diaspora, and
community that animate the scholarship and activism of African American
Studies.
Additionally, this conference will engage a dialogue of commemoration and
reflection. Nearly forty years since the first black studies departments
entered the academy, the relevance of their work has continually been the
subject of debate. In the past year, academic press querying the state of
black studies and its apparent "identity crisis" has concerned exigent
questions about what constitutes and distinguishes African American Studies,
as well as the institutional and theoretical relationships between African
American Studies and other traditional and multidisciplinary departments.
The crucial issues imbedded in the debate about how (and why) to delineate
the field of African American Studies are central concerns of our
conference.

We invite graduate students to submit paper proposals that explore the
particular work of African American Studies by addressing the historical,
literary, political, and philosophical strands of Pan-Africanisms. Rather
than positing a distinct ideology, we use the term Pan-Africanisms to refer
to the multiplicity of movements, philosophies, and scholarly innovations
that complicate the boundaries of diasporic study. We encourage papers that
address Pan-Africanisms through themes that include, but are not limited to:
global feminisms, gender and sexuality, grass-roots activism, environmental
justice and geopolitical movements, religious studies, visual culture,
performance studies, literary and filmic criticism and post-colonial theory.
We are also desirous of papers that explore the theme of Pan-Africanisms as
a set of corresponding questions; such as: What are the intellectual
traditions of Pan-Africanism? What does Pan-Africanism mean to a post- (or
neo) colonial present? What is the methodology of Pan-Africanism and what is
the relationship between its political projects and the academy? How might
Pan-Africanism help us identify the particular contributions of black
studies and the interchange between African Studies and African American
Studies? Similarly, how might the theme of Pan-Africanism help us understand
the particular convergence and divergence of the key terms diaspora,
transnationalism, and black Atlantic?

Graduate students whose work involves black studies across the humanities
and social sciences are invited to submit a CV and a *1 page* abstract to:
panafricanisms at hotmail.com or to:

Pan-Africanisms Conference
c/o Brandi Hughes
493 College Street
Yale Station
P.O. Box 203388
New Haven, CT 06520-3388



Pan-Africanisms Conference
493 College Street
Yale Station
P.O. Box 203388
New Haven, CT 06520-3388
(203)432-1170
Email: panafricanisms at hotmail.com




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