Yolanda Covington-Ward, Ph.D.
J.C. DjeDje forwards this release:
DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MARCH 1, 2019: CFP Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD) 2019 Conference
Yolanda Denise Covington
Call for Papers: Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora
10th Biennial Conference, November 5-9, 2019
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
Remembrance, Renaissance, Revolution:
The Meaning of Freedom in the African World Over Time and Space
Proposal Submission Deadline: 1st March, 2019
The
year 2019 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the origins of
slavery in what became the United States with the arrival of
approximately twenty Africans in modern-day Jamestown, Virginia in
August 1619. Described in English records as “twenty and odd” Negroes,
these captive Africans from West-Central Africa reflected the growing
intensity of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the world’s largest forced
migration that connected Africa, Europe, the Americas, the Caribbean,
and Asia. This global system of migration, enslavement, and oppression
was critical to the making of the modern world. Throughout the Black
world, unfortunately, the emancipation of enslaved people did not result
in full freedom.Moreover, decades
of European worldwide colonial domination, especially within the African
continent, further obstructed people of African descent in the global
political economy, with a continued impact in the present day.
Africa
is the birthplace of humankind, and under a multiplicity of
circumstances, African descendants have dispersed and migrated to every
corner of the globe. These numerous African diasporas are marked
variously by (in)voluntary movement, servitude, trade, military/imperial
objectives, and cultural, academic, and professional ambition. This
broader understanding provides new opportunities to fully appreciate the
complex histories and creative cultures of today’s many African
diasporas. Despite vast differences across and within contemporary
African diasporas around the globe, there remain broad commonalities of
marginalization, exclusion and relative material deprivation for
African-descended people in their respective societies. The contemporary
world has seen a resurgence of blatant racism, xenophobia, misogyny,
homophobia, and other forms of intolerance directed towards the
African-descended and other communities racially constructed as
“others”. But despite past and present horrors, African-descended
peoples across the globe have survived and thrived, remembering their
pasts and re-envisioning their futures in ways that continue to lead to
and strive for renaissance, freedom, and revolution in the contemporary
world.
ASWAD
invites panel and individual paper proposal submissions for its 10th
biennial conference to be held in Williamsburg, VA (USA), November 5 to
9, 2019 on the campus of the College of William and Mary to discuss,
examine, and reflect on the legacies of enslavement and the meaning(s)
of freedom for people of African descent nationally and globally on the
four hundredth anniversary of the origins of slavery in what became the
United States. We also seek papers that interrogate the many other
diasporas that began (and continue) in Africa, and continue to flourish
in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South and Central America, the
Caribbean and the Pacific/Indian Ocean basins. We are particularly
interested in panels and papers on the conference themes of remembrance,
renaissance, and revolution in the many African diasporas across time
and space. However, we encourage papers from any time period and topic related to the study of the African-descended.
As
an interdisciplinary organization, ASWAD invites presentations that
illuminate the lives of Africans and African descendants from scholars
of any discipline, including the humanities, social sciences, performing
arts, education, physical sciences, life and health sciences,
engineering, and computer science. We aim to collaborate with activist
and intellectual communities around sustained dialogue involving the
black diaspora and the meaning of freedom across time and space, and the
historical and contemporary legacies of slavery.
In
addition to academics, ASWAD welcomes artists, activists, journalists,
and independent scholars with specific interests in one or more of the
many African Diasporas. We are especially keen to forge and to enhance
collaborations between academics, independent scholars, and community
members.
We
encourage proposals that align with the conference theme. Suggested
panel themes include, but are not limited to the following:
- Slavery, Abolition, and Reparations
- Freedom, Resistance, and Revolution
- UN International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015-2024
- Importance of Remembering the Year 1619
- Humanitarianism and Human Rights across the African World
- Diasporic Feminisms, Women, Girls, and Global Africa
- Political Economy, Globalization, Migration, and the African Diaspora
- Religion, Power, and Praxis in the African Diaspora
- Music, Performance, and Cultural Activism in Africa and the Black World
- Families, Community, and the Black World
- The State, Citizenship, and Civil Society
- Black Lives Matter, Reaja ou Será Morta, Reaja ou Será Morto;Mass Incarceration, State Violence, and Resistance across the African World
- Black Queer Diasporas and Black LGBTQ People
- White Nationalism, Racism, Xenophobia, and the Contemporary Black World
- The Chesapeake and the African Diaspora
- Food, Health, Wellness, and Global Africa
- The Environment, Climate Change, Sustainability, and the African World
- Media, Representations, and Black People
- Literature and Translating the African Diaspora and Black Identities
- Social Media, Electronic Mediations, Digital Mobilities, and Technological Connectivities
- Diasporic communities in the Asian/Pacific World: China, India, Japan, etc.
- Sports and Black Athletes
- Temporality, Memory, and the African Diaspora
- Pedagogy, Higher Education, Community, and Activism
- Labor Organizing in Local and Transnational Contexts
- Black Europe
- Geographies, Space, and Place
- African Diasporic Futures: Challenges and Opportunities
- Pre-Atlantic Slave Trade Diasporas
- Diasporic Communities in the Middle East
- Trade, Labor, and Economic Migration Diasporas
- Professional/Educational Diasporas
- Cultural and Ethnic-Identified Diasporas (i.e. Yoruba diasporas)
- “State of the Field” Panels
Information about Excursions: The
conference will take participants out of the academic setting and into
local Virginia communities. Conference attendees will visit prominent
historic sites and participate in community events, such as the “Day of
Remembrance” at Point Comfort, the first landing place of Africans in
1619. They will tour Fort Monroe, the site of liberation of 100,000
blacks who escaped slavery during the Civil War; sites of the
Underground Railroad and runaway slave maroon communities; the Nat
Turner Trail and the Emancipation Oak at Hampton University. The
conference coincides with an African Diaspora Food Festival, to be held
in Williamsburg from November 8-10, 2019. Showcasing African, Caribbean,
South American, African American and Native American cuisines and
cultures, the Festival speaks to the diasporic nature of the ASWAD
conference. The ASWAD conference will conclude with a tour of Richmond’s
historic Jackson Ward, viewing of 1619 exhibits at the Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture and a
closing reception at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia
Commonwealth University.
INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSIONS OF PROPOSALS
All ASWAD conference presenters must be members of ASWAD.
To join or renew, please click here: https://aswad.memberclicks.net/
Whole
panel proposals will be given priority in the review process. Please
submit a panel proposal of no more than 200 words for thematic panels
consisting of no more than four panelists, and a possible discussant.
Proposals must include paper abstracts of no more than 150 words and
bios of no more than 50 words for each presenter. All participants must be members of ASWAD in good standing at the time of abstract submission.
The deadline for Panel/Paper Proposals is March 1, 2019 and
acceptance notification is expected April 1, 2019. Confirmation of
attendance and paid conference registration are required by May 15,
2019.
To submit proposals, please click here: ASWAD Proposal Submission 2019
Mentoring Sessions: ASWAD
2019 will also feature special mentoring sessions open to registered
conference attendees (Sign-up details will be posted at a later date).
Note: For an online version of this Call for Papers please click here: ASWAD CFP 2019
Yolanda Covington-Ward, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Africana Studies
Secondary Appointment, Department of Anthropology
President, Association for Africanist Anthropology (AfAA)
Executive Board Member, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD)
Co-Chair, Dietrich School Faculty Diversity Committee
Founder and Coordinator, Peer Mentoring Group for Faculty Success at Pitt
University of Pittsburgh
4140 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
230 South Bouquet Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Author of Book Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo (2016, Duke University Press). Available at Duke University Press and Amazon (Winner
of the 2016 Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology from the Royal
Anthropological Institute and the 2017 Elliott P. Skinner Prize from
the Association for Africanist Anthropology)
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