Call for submissions (in various genres) deadline: 31 March 2015

From the call for submissions:

The editors of ArtsEtc are presently inviting writers to submit work to appear online in ArtsEtc No. 31. This issue’s content will essentially be dedicated to Kamau Brathwaite’s work, life and legacy.

Submissions can be in any form (poetry, essay, book review, song, etc.), previously published (with full credit listed) or new. They can be excerpts or full pieces.

1) only one submission per contributor;

2) poetry/songs should be no longer than one (1) page;

3) prose should be no longer than five hundred (500) words.

The editors would also welcome significant photos with or of Kamau. Kindly include a caption, with the names of those in the photo, place taken, date taken, and by whom (if different from the contributor/copyright holder).

All contributors retain the copyright to their work. ArtsEtc is requesting only the non-exclusive right to publish the work on its website for this special issue and store it in the website’s online archives afterward.

Deadline: 31 March 2015.

All submissions may be sent to John Robert Lee at johnrenator@gmail.com and Jasmine Sealy at jasminesealy@gmail.com.

Above adapted from Repeating Islands announcement.

19-23 June 2015
Charles Town, Portland, Jamaica

CFP deadline: Abstracts due by 15 March

The Seventh Charles Town International Maroon Conference invites papers that explore the relationships between place and tradition in Indigenous and Maroon communities around the globe.

Held in the Maroon community of Charles Town surrounded by Jamaica’s Blue and John Crow Mountains, this interdisciplinary conference will explore issues, values, and practices of Maroons and indigenous peoples as well as ideas about marronage and indigeneity to consider the ways they have endured, transformed, and resonated in the Caribbean, Canada, Australia, South America, Europe, the United States, and Africa. The conference offers a unique combination of scholarly panels and cultural events in fields that include history, linguistics, art, literature, film, sociology, ethnography, ethnomusicology, geography, legal studies, gender studies, religious studies, cultural studies, and indigenous studies.

Issues to consider might include:

• Land Rights
• Indigeneity
• Territoriality
• Marronage
• Representation
• Language and Literature
• Identity
• Space/Place
• Sustainability
• Dispossession and landlessness
• Cultural heritage
tourism
• Laws and legality
• Music
• DNA
• Education

Please send abstracts of 250-300 words by 15 March or inquiries to: charlestownmaroonconference@gmail.com or fbotkin@towson.edu.

Above adapted from emailed announcement.

Call for papers for proposed anthology:

Caribbean Outlook: the dynamics of politics, ideology, regionalism and evolving perspectives

Deadlines: 28 February 2015 – abstracts of proposals;  30 June 2015 – full papers due

From the CFP:

The publication brings together written discussion by contributors on Caribbean society on intellectual areas that have shaped and are shaping the characteristics of the Caribbean. The objectives of the publication are to connect with students and academics at the tertiary level but can also be a generally used resource. As a result, one goal of the publication is to have innovative, refreshing, re-examined viewpoints on different academic areas challenging traditional and even revisionist ideas. By this, the publication provides an opportunity for contributors to put forward ideas into the academic domain alongside traditional and critical ideas. The thematic structure of the publication was chosen given the impact that these areas have within the region.

The exploration of political issues provides the backdrop for understanding the systems of power within the Caribbean. Part of this exploration is to examine the legacies of colonial administration through the influence of the political party structure, the parliamentary system, and constitutional foundations of the region’s system of politics. Ideology continues to play a central role in the development of the Caribbean’s identity ranging from labour movements, identity consciousness and constitutional reform. The struggles of small Caribbean states within the worldwide economy provides the underpinning for exploring Caribbean unification as a critical aspect of the region’s twenty-first century goals. In some instances, the discussion of the importance of Caribbean integration has not given traction to the integration movement while other aspects of regionalism are losing power to influence the integration discussion. Finally, evolving perspectives provides an opportunity to investigate areas that have in the past few years been seen as important pillars for social development. For example, gender, sport, banking and law were second to politics, economics, and labour as it pertains to forces shaping the Caribbean. However, these areas are very important for the continued institutional progress of Caribbean society.

To attain the goal of creating a relevant framework for discussion, each contribution should be situated within a theoretical basis outlining why and how the elements within the area have impacted upon Caribbean society. Each submission therefore will be examined and approved depending on the quality of research. Authors are asked to submit an abstract with final submission to be made later on.

Citation style: Chicago Manual of Style (latest edition)

Word length: 8,000 – 10,000

Proposed Publishers: Palgrave MacMillan or Edward Elgar Publishing

For more information, contact:  jerome.teelucksingh@sta.uwi.edu  – Jerome Teelucksingh, University of the West Indies – St. Augustine

Journal of International Womens Studies
Special Issue Call for Papers

Women and Gender: Looking Toward “Caribbeanness”

CFP deadline: Full papers due via email by 31 July 2015.

From the CFP:

This special issue of the JIWS explores notions of “Caribbeanness” and how they are manifested within the geographical region and beyond into the diaspora, through literature, transnational activism, and constructions of: feminism, identity, femininity, masculinity, and sexuality. Édouard Glissant’s work theorizes that while the notion of a Caribbean unity through diversity is capable of empowering its people to “possess their world and their lived experience” it is a dream “forever denied, often deferred…vital but not obvious” (Caribbean Discourse 221). How can Caribbeanness function beyond the imaginary as multiple, plastic and porous, shared and contested, bound and liberating? Given its possibilities for continued division and exclusion by way of language, race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation, once Caribbeanness takes form and expression, how can it be actualized as agency? Is the fragile reality of Caribbeanness still a dream to work towards? Continue reading Women and Gender: Looking Toward “Caribbeanness”

The Performance of Pan-Africanism: from Colonial Exhibitions to Black and African Cultural Festivals

20-22 October, 2016
Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
Florida State University

CFP deadline: Submit proposals electronically here by 1 February 2016.

Call for Papers:

In April 1966, thousands of artists, musicians, performers and writers from across Africa and its diaspora gathered in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to take part in the First World Festival of Black and African Culture (Premier Festival Mondial des arts nègres). The festival constituted a highly symbolic moment both in the era of decolonization and the push for civil rights for African Americans in the United States. In essence, the festival sought to perform an emerging pan-African culture, to give concrete cultural expression to the ties that would bind the African ‘homeland’ to black people in the diaspora. On the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of Dakar ’66, this conference seeks to examine the festival and its multiple legacies, in order to help us better to understand both the utopianism of the 1960s and the ‘festivalization’ of Africa that has occurred in recent decades. The conference is also interested in exploring the role of colonial exhibitions and world’s fairs in establishing a set of representational frameworks that would later be contested but also sometimes (unwittingly) adopted by black/African groups in the aftermath of the Second World War. Continue reading The Performance of Pan-Africanism

Call for submissions to multi-generic anthology

CFP deadline: 30 March 2015

From emailed CFP:

Despite signs of economic recovery, millions of Americans from all walks of life are still experiencing tough economic times. With the reduction in food stamps and other welfare benefits, rise in college tuition across the nation, and continued high unemployment among some of the most marginalized in our society ( the poor, the elderly, and the youth, for example) many people are still having difficulty making ends meet. In addition, racial tensions have gotten even higher than usual fueled by recent incidents of racial profiling and police brutality, and nationwide protests against these incidents by a wide cross section of people.

Our anthology, Tough Times in America, aims to provide a platform for telling diverse stories about “tough times” from multiple perspectives. We will accept true stories, as well as “fictionalized” versions of real life events. This collection aims to preserve and document narrative accounts of the anger, fear and frustration that most Americans are feeling due to massive job losses, loss of homes, loss of healthcare, reduced retirement benefits, police profiling and police brutality, etc. We also hope to document the hope and gratitude that bloom even in the midst of despair—true testaments to the tenacity of the human spirit. Significantly, we would like this collection to reflect the diversity of America in the 21st century, and so we welcome submissions from people from all ethnicities, racial, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.

Fiction should be between 1500 to 4000 words. Times New Roman or similar sized font (12 point). Stories must be previously unpublished in any form, including print, web etc. Each story should be identified within the geographic location/landmark of the city in which it is set. We will consider stories from all around the Americas (yes, this includes the Caribbean and Latin America). For our poetry selections, we will consider up to 3 poems per author. We welcome established as well as unpublished writers who would like to represent their experiences or the experiences of their friends and loved ones as well as fictional accounts. Deadline for submissions: 30 March 2015.

Please send your submissions to: Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley: (weirsole@fiu.edu) and Max Freesney Pierre (prrmax@yahoo.com).

Dr. Weir-Soley is an Associate Professor of English at Florida International University. She is the author of First Rain, Eroticism, Spirituality, and Resistance in Black Women’s Writings, and co-editor of the anthology Caribbean Erotic (Peepal Tree Press).

Max Freesney Pierre is an Adjunct Professor of English at Florida International University and a former administrator at Miami-Dade College. Pierre is a poet/writer/journalist, the author of Tambours de la Mêlée, Fée Caraïbe, Soul Traveler and Le chant de l’apaisement.