[URBANTH-L] CFP: African Crossroads: Artistic Expression in and across the Sahara

[bvergara at sfsu.edu]

African Crossroads
Location:	Minnesota, United States
Publication Deadline:	2005-06-01

African Crossroads: Artistic Expression in and across the Sahara

You are invited to contribute to an edited volume which explores trans-Saharan
artistic contacts from a trans-national and post-area studies perpsective.
Africa has traditionally been viewed through a bifocal lens, in which the Sahara
has been perceived as an impenetrable barrier, dividing the continent into
northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Countries in the north continue to be
considered within the domain of Islamic, Middle Eastern, Classical and Ancient
Egyptian studies having little or no artistic contact with sub-Saharan countries
considered more authentically "African". Scholars have failed to recognize that
communication, correspondence, trade and travel, in partnership with nomadic
movements across the Sahara, has been going on for several millenia. This
intercourse among traders, scholars, artisans and nomads set the stage for the
emergence of richly diverse aesthetic expressions both along the web of routes
crossing the Sahara as well as at their terminii.

Papers should address the methodological, conceptual, stylistic or technical
aspects of artistic creativity and performance, either contemporary or historic,
which reflect aspects of this artistic discourse and/or which illustrate how the
Sahara was/is a porous boundary, a bridge rather than a barrier, for the
transmission and exchange of arts and culture.

If you are interested, please email a Title, an Abstract (c. 200 words) and a CV
to either Cynthia Becker or Labelle Prussin by June 1, 2005. Queries are welcome.

Final essays, between 6000-8000 words plus illustrations, will be due on October
1, 2005.
Cynthia Becker (e-mail address shown below)
Labelle Prussin (lprussin at aol.com)

	Cynthia Becker
University of St. Thomas
Department of Art History, 57P
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105-1096
651-962-5572
Email: cjbecker at stthomas.edu