Caribbean Military Encounters

Editors Shalini Puri and Lara Putnam invite papers for a multidisciplinary humanities anthology that explores the Caribbean as a militarized region.

CFP deadline: Proposals due 15 December 2014; full papers due 31 May 2015

From the CFP:

We hope to include essays from disciplines such as Art History, Cultural Studies, Literature, Media, Musicology, and Performance Studies.  Some essays might explore cartoons, art, music and literature that touch upon the militarization of everyday life.  Additionally, the collection will include testimonies and personal narratives gathered from Caribbean citizens and foreign and Caribbean military personnel.  We especially welcome contributions that draw on illuminating anecdote, narrative nuance, texture, and voice.

Our focus on lived experience, everyday life, and artistic and political cultures from across the numerous language areas of the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean distinguishes our approach from that which is dominant in Policy Studies and Security Studies.  Our approach also differs from those strands of leftist or nationalist scholarship in which resistance to militarization has taken the form of a reluctance to explore the topic except via “agonistic narratives” (Neptune, Caliban and the Yankees 11) that highlight opposition and sidestep complicity, co-implication, and reluctant or strategic participation.  We are as interested in the creative ways disenfranchised populations claim the precarious possibilities militarization offers as we are in opposition to militarization expressed in the arts, everyday life, and organized politics; practices of complicity as well as of critique.  

Please send indication of interest, 500-word proposals (or longer work), contact information, and bios of 75 words by 15 December 2014.  Consideration by editors for inclusion in the volume will be based on the complete paper, which will be due 31 May 2015.  Final acceptance will depend on peer review.

Above adapted from emailed CFP

Proposals and papers should be sent by email to [email protected]

African and Diasporic Spiritual Soundscapes
Harvard University | Friday, 3 April 2015 | 8 am – 5 pm
Film Festival Saturday, 4 April, Noon – 4pm

CFP deadline: 19 December 2014

The African and Diasporic Religious Studies Association (ADRSA) presents its third day-long conference on the theme African and Diasporic Spiritual Soundscapes. Coined by R. Murray Schafer, the term soundscape refers to a combination of sounds that inhabit an environment. Songs, stomps, chants, claps, rhythmic breaths, animal sounds, ringing bells, prayers, shaking rattles, shouts, laughter, rustles of leaves, pounding of pestle on mortar, and more comprise the soundscapes of African and Diasporic Religious practice. This conference will investigate and celebrate these sounds, the aural tapestries they weave, and the ways in which they are integral to our understandings of the worldsenses contained in these rich traditions with topics including but not limited to:

• African and Diasporic religious perspectives on noise, music, and sound
• Theories and meanings of the use of music and sound in ritual
• Ethnomusicological case studies on music and sound in  African and Diasporic traditions
• Comparative studies juxtaposing types of sound or the use of similar sounds across traditions

Submissions should center on one or more African Indigenous (Ndebele, Yoruba, Kongo, Dagara, Eedyi, Igbo, Shona, etc.) or African Diasporic (Vodou, Lukumi, Umbanda, Shango Baptist, Kumina, Revival Zion, etc.) spiritual/religious traditions. Scholar-practitioner perspectives are welcomed. Panel proposals are encouraged. Graduate students are particularly encouraged to apply.

For consideration, please submit a 500 word abstract, a 100-250 word bio, and Curriculum Vitae by 19 December 2014. Panel proposals should include a 300-500 word description of the panel and all of the above information for each participant.

Submit abstracts at www.ADRSA.com/conference

For inquiries contact [email protected]

Find out more about the ADRSA at www.ADRSA.org

Above adapted from emailed CFP.

Edited Collection on Twentieth Century Black Women’s Internationalism

CFP deadline: Completed manuscripts due 30 December 2014

Editors: Tiffany M. Gill (University of Delaware) and Keisha N. Blain (Penn State)

The scholarship on the Black International has been predominately male-centric, emphasizing individuals such as W.E.B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, Paul Robeson and C.L.R. James. With few exceptions, black women have been marginalized in historical narratives of black internationalism, which center on the global visions of black people in the United States and their sustained efforts to forge transnational collaborations and solidarities with people of color from across the globe. This volume is a collection of essays that analyze the gendered contours of black internationalism and explore the creative and critical ways women articulated black internationalism during the twentieth century. Highlighting the writings, speeches, performances, activism, and overseas travel of a diverse range of female actors, this collection moves black women from the margins to the center of the historical narrative. However, this anthology does more than just expand the paucity of scholarship on black women and internationalism. Indeed, this volume is both an assessment of the field as well as an attempt to expand the contours of black internationalism theoretically, spatially, and temporally. In contrast to studies that confine black internationalism to foreign policy agendas and political insurgencies, this collection captures the shifting meanings, complexities, and varied articulations of the term.

The editors seek historical essays that employ a gender analysis, foreground black women’s voices, and reveal the underappreciated importance of women in shaping black internationalist movements and discourse(s) during the twentieth century. Continue reading Twentieth Century Black Women’s Internationalism

Genetics/Heritage: New Perspectives on the Study of Atlantic Slavery
23-25 April 2015
International Slavery Museum
Liverpool, UK

Deadline for Submissions: 250-word abstracts due 1 December 2014

From the organizers:We invite contributions to Genetics/Heritage, an international
conference on that brings together perspectives from population
genetics, archaeology, anthropology, and history. We are seeking
20-minute presentations that highlight cutting-edge research from
genetics and heritage to showcase the productive results of
collaboration across disciplinary boundaries. Papers that focus on the
history and contemporary legacies of the transatlantic slave trade are
particularly welcome.

The conference is funded by the EUROTAST, a Marie Curie Initial
Training Network and supported by the International Slavery Museum in
Liverpool. The event will also feature a keynote address from
Professor Alondra Nelson, Columbia University, and will take place the
23-24 of April, 2015 at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool,
with a community workshop on April 25th.

Proposals for papers (20 minutes in length) should be submitted as an
abstract (250 words max) by 1 December.

Please submit your abstract here.

Above adapted from email announcement. Please see the organizers’ website for more details:
GENETICS/HERITAGE.

“More Than White, More Than Mulatto, More Than Black”:
Racial Politics in Cuba and the Americas

26-28 February 2015
Florida International University
Modesto A. Maidique Campus

Deadline for submissions: 31 October 2014

CFP from conference website:

The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) of Florida International University continues its tradition of convening scholars, students, and other persons interested in the study of Cuba and Cuban Americans by announcing its Tenth Conference. We encourage the submission of panels and papers concentrating on any aspects of the main conference theme, but will consider all submissions relevant to the history, economy, politics, culture, society, and creative expression of Cuba and its diaspora. Continue reading Racial Politics in Cuba and the Americas

Special Collection by the Caribbean IRN & Sargasso

Title: Love | Hope | Community: Sexualities and Social Justice in the Caribbean

CFP deadline: A variety of text and multimedia submissions are sought for this special collection. Please send text submissions via email to [email protected] by 15 January 2015. Please send multi-media submissions via email to [email protected] by 15 January 2015. Full submission details below.

Deadline: Applications due by Friday, 9 January 2015

Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers, in collaboration with the Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean Studies, is pleased to announce a one-year competitive postdoctoral fellowship for a scholar pursuing research in Caribbean Studies. We seek scholars working on innovative cultural, artistic, historical, theoretical, and/or social studies. Scholars working on the Dutch or the French Caribbean, with a focus on transnationalism, migration, colonial legacies, decolonization, race and racism, and/or queer feminist studies, are especially encouraged to apply, but we welcome applications from all scholars who feel that their work would benefit from affiliation with the Caribbean studies community at Rutgers. The selected fellow will receive a stipend of $65,000 as well as an annual research allocation of $3,000 and Rutgers University health benefits. The successful applicant must have the doctorate in hand by July 1, 2015 (defense date must be scheduled no later than May 31, 2015), be no more than three years beyond the Ph.D. (degree received on 2012 or later), and be able to teach one undergraduate course during the Spring semester of their tenure at Rutgers. Position begins on July 1, 2015 and ends onJune 30, 2016.

The Department of Latino and Hispanic Caribbean studies (http://latcar.rutgers.edu/) is a space for cutting-edge interdisciplinary research and teaching. Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers http://criticalcaribbean.rutgers.edu/ aims to foster multi-disciplinary research about the Caribbean to allow a better understanding of the region and its people from a variety of perspectives.

Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers http://criticalcaribbean.rutgers.edu/ aims to foster multi-disciplinary research about the Caribbean to allow a better understanding of the region and its people from a variety of perspectives.  Affiliates conduct research on such diverse areas as diaspora and transnational studies, migration and immigration, cultural and performance studies, critical race theory, gender and sexuality studies, psychoanalysis, colonial and postcolonial studies, decoloniality, political theory, critical epistemology, intellectual history, history of New World slavery, social movements and revolution, eighteenth century studies, the urban Atlantic, contemporary urbanization, environmental studies, insularity, and the archipelagic Americas.

There will be opportunities for the postdoctoral fellow to connect with broader academic and community-minded research units at the University, including the Center for Cultural Analysis, the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, the Center for Race & Ethnicity, the Center for African Studies and the Institute for Research on Women.

Candidates should submit their applications, consisting of a CV, a 1,500-word statement and 3 letters of recommendation,electronically to http://apply.interfolio.com/26321.  The statement should address the following: (1) the significance of the candidate’s research and the specific project that will be developed during the one year postdoctoral fellowship, (2) a brief description of the course the candidate could offer, and (3) how and why Rutgers can advance the candidate’s areas of research. Applications must be received by Friday, 9 January 2015.

Applications are free to candidates who already have an account in interfolio.com.  If you are unable to create an interfolio account, please contact [email protected] by 10 December 2014.

Rutgers University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. The institution values diversity in its faculty, staff, and students and especially encourages applications from women and underrepresented minorities.

Above adapted from emailed announcement.

Conference to be held at the British Academy, London
29 June-1 July 2015

CFP deadline: Proposals due 1 December 2014

Sponsored by The Centre for the History of Violence, and the University of Newcastle, Australia

Guest speakers:
Partha Chatterjee, Columbia University
Elizabeth Kolsky, Villanova University
This conference will bring together scholars from across the world to explore innovative ways of critically engaging with the question of violence, repression and atrocity in imperial and colonial empires, its representations and memories, from the late eighteenth through to the twentieth century. The conference will explore the wide variety of means by which empire was maintained in the modern era, the politics of repression and the structures inherent in empire. We want to explore broader trends in the direction and intent of imperial violence and state repression, including extra-legal sanctions, and how patterns of violence, embedded within other forms of colonialism and culture, created cultural, legal, social, or imperial ‘spaces’. The conference organizers encourage scholars to interpret the conference themes broadly in crafting their proposals and are not limited to European colonial empires made up of settler societies, but also empires of occupation.
The organizers have three interrelated aims. Continue reading Violence, Colonialism, and Empire in the Modern and Contemporary World

Call for papers for a special issue of the journal of Women, Gender and Families of Color on Women, Gender Politics, and Pan-Africanism

Deadline: Completed manuscripts must be submitted by 30 January 2015

Guest Editors: Ula Taylor (UC Berkeley), Asia Leeds (Spelman College), and Keisha N. Blain (Penn State)

For centuries, black men and women have struggled for economic, social, and cultural rights under the banner of Pan-Africanism—the political belief that African peoples, on the continent and in the diaspora, share a common past and destiny. A growing body of scholarship has examined the complexities of Pan-Africanism, noting its shifting meanings and its many manifestations across time and space. Much of this work, however, focuses primarily on the contributions of men and has given marginal consideration to the importance of women and gender in shaping Pan-Africanist movements and discourses. This special issue will explore the role of women and gender in twentieth century Pan-Africanism in the United States, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.  The articles in this issue will reveal that gender politics—including the gendered divisions of organizational labor and ideas about feminism, manhood, and womanhood—are central, not peripheral, to the theories and practices of Pan-Africanism that developed in these regions. The editors seek essays that utilize various research methodologies and draw on various theoretical frameworks from multiple disciplines within the Social Sciences and the Humanities. These essays should probe intersecting dimensions such as race, gender, sexuality, and class; and offer some discussion of how twentieth century Pan-Africanist movements and discourses have informed/should inform contemporary initiatives. The editors encourage potential contributors to submit articles that explore topics that include but are not limited to the following:

• Pan-Africanism among African women activists
• Afro-Latinas’ engagement in Pan-African movements
• Caribbean women and Pan-Africanism
• Gender and black nationalism

Completed manuscripts must be submitted by January 30, 2015 to Keisha N. Blain, [email protected] (please copy Asia Leeds, [email protected]). Manuscripts should be a maximum of 30 pages, inclusive of title page, abstract (150 words or less), main body of text, figures, tables, and Chicago Style, 16th edition references. Only title pages should contain authors’ names, affiliation, phone & FAX numbers, in addition to the email address of the corresponding author. If you would like to review for this issue or have additional inquiries, please contact the guest editors.

Women, Gender, and Families of Color, published bi-annually in the spring and fall, is available electronically and in hard copy (http://womengenderandfamilies.ku.edu).  It is sponsored by the University of Kansas and published by the University of Illinois Press.  Founded in 1918, the University of Illinois Press ranks as one of the country’s most distinguished university presses. It publishes works of high quality for scholars, students, and the citizens of the state and beyond.  More information about the University of Illinois Press can be found at: http://www.press.uillinois.edu

Above adapted from email announcement

Latin American Studies Association (LASA) Congress
27-30 May 2015
San Juan, Puerto Rico

Call for papers for panel “New Critical Frameworks for the Queer Caribbean”
Sponsored by the Sexualities Section

Deadline for abstracts: 15 August 2014; electronically to [email protected]

This past decade has seen a remarkable increase in scholarship about non-heteronormative Caribbean sexualities. Many of these studies foreground how both local and global forces and epistemologies intersect and shape sexualities in the region together with experiences of migration. Thus, the categories of the local/global as well as those of nation/diaspora, along with that of (s)exile, have played key roles in apprehending queer Caribbean sexualities; yet, scholars have also found these to be insufficient for apprehending in more nuanced ways Caribbean queer subjects’ movements across and belonging to various cultural contexts. Hence scholars have offered new critical-interpretative frameworks, including, for example, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes’ articulation of the “transloca” subject and Rosamond S. King’s notion of the “Caribglobal” cultural space, to better account for these realities. We seek papers for this panel that explore the lived experience and/or cultural representations of queer Caribbean subjects and how these, beyond the local and the global and nation/diaspora/exile, gesture to and demand new conceptual paradigms and critical frameworks for apprehending sexual alterities in the region.

Please submit a 250 word abstract and brief bio by August 15^th to:

[email protected].
Maja Horn, Associate Professor
Spanish and Latin American Cultures
Barnard College

e-misférica 11.2 – Caribbean Rasanblaj
Invited editor: Gina Athena Ulysse, Wesleyan University

Deadlines: completed essays due 15 September 2014; advance queries and abstracts welcome. Multimedia presentations and reviews also welcome.

Rasanblaj (n)
Resist the impulse to translate, pronounce it first. Think consciously of the sound. Let the arch of the r roll over the ah that automatically depresses the tongue; allow the hiss in the s that will culminate at the front of the teeth to entice the jaw to drop for the an sound while un-smacking the lips will propel the bl surrounding the depressed ah again ending with j. Play with its contours. Know what this word feels like in your mouth. In Haitian Kreyòl. 3 syllables. Ra-San-Blaj.

Defined as assembly, compilation, enlisting, regrouping, (of ideas, things, people, spirits. For example, fè yon rasanblaj, do a gathering, a ceremony, a protest), rasanblaj’s very linguistic formation subverted and resisted colonial oppression (M.Condé). << Consider that Article 16 of the 1685 French Code Noir forbade slaves of different masters to gather at any time under any circumstances >>. Its etymology and significations index the histories through which it emerged.

Rasanblaj: Catalyst. Keyword. Method. Practice. Project.

Rasanblaj issues a provocation to reframe discursive and expressive practices in the Caribbean (and its diasporas). Rasanblaj requires communal presence from the engaged to the radical, and is inter-active from the grassroots level rather than imposed from above. Considering the embodied visceral in the structural, it invokes Audre Lorde’s feminist erotic knowledge in its fullest dimensions from the political, to the sensual and spiritual (M. Sheller). It calls upon us to think through Caribbean performance and politics, recognizing the crossroads not as destination, but as point of encounter from which to move beyond. Indeed, with unequivocal evidence that the past and the future exist in the present (C.L.R. James, M-R. Trouillot), rasanblaj not only presupposes intent and method but also offers possibilities for other modalities and narratives. Thus, it allows us to contemplate the performative in subjectivity, agency, communities and citizenship that constitute Caribbean futures (B. Meeks), with the Marvelous and utopias imagined as possible realities (S. Césaire, J. Muñoz). An explicitly decolonial project, rasanblaj demands that we consider the limited scope of segregated frameworks to explore what remains excluded in this landscape full of life, yet ridden with inequities and dangerous memories (M. J. Alexander).

Please submit completed essays by September 15, 2014; advance queries and abstracts are most welcome. To submit multimedia presentations and reviews, please contact the editors with proposals not later than August 17, 2015, with texts and materials due September 15.

 For this issue, e-misférica will accept submissions in English, Spanish, Creole, French and Portuguese. All contributions, proposals, and consultations should be sent to the editors at [email protected]. Our guidelines and style sheet can be found at http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/participate.

Above from full, multi-lingual CFP available here.

Panel CFP for Northeast Modern Language Association
46th Annual Convention
Toronto, Ontario
April 30-May 3, 2015

Abstract Deadline: 30 September 2014; electronic submission via NeMLA site

For this panel, we invite participants to explore the rich cultural production of Caribbean artists (writers, musicians, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, dancers, etc.) of the last hundred years. How are we defining the Caribbean in the twenty-first century? How are we in conversation with each other? How do the arts portend the future of the region? We recognize ‘Caribbean’ to include the attendant international diasporas and welcome abstracts in all of the national languages spoken there.

For more information, contact panel chairs: Irline Francois and Vanessa Valdés ([email protected])

Call for Papers for manuscript submission for the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships which is published by the University of Nebraska Press.  This refereed, interdisciplinary journal will shed light upon the continuum of sexual expression of those of African descent.  Please submit narratives of qualitative and quantitative research efforts or of conceptual or clinical essays that seek to advance the field of sexology.

The first issue will be out in October, 2014 and so the deadline for manuscript review is 15 June 2014. 

For more information please visit their website here.

Submissions

Send manuscripts electronically using Microsoft Word to James C. Wadley, Ph.D at [email protected] and [email protected]

DEADLINE: 15 June 2014

Each manuscript must be accompanied by a statement that it has not been sent for publication or published elsewhere.  As an author, you are required to secure permission if you want to reproduce any figure, table, or extract from the text of another source.  All figures should be camera ready.

All parts of the manuscript should be typewritten, double-spaced, with margins of at least one inch on all sides.  Quantitative manuscripts should not exceed 30 pages total (including cover page, abstract, text, references, tables, and figures), with margins of at least 1 inch on all sides and a standard font (e.g., Times New Roman) of 12 points (no smaller).  Qualitative manuscripts should not exceed 40 pages. For papers that exceed page limits, authors must provide a rationale to justify the extended length in their cover letter (e.g., multiple studies are reported). Papers that do not conform to these guidelines may be returned with instructions to revise before a peer review is invited.

The manuscript files should be submitted in MS Word (Windows Vista users, please save your files as an earlier “.doc” filetype). Include (1) the manuscript title and running head; (2) all author names, affiliations, mailing addresses, and e-mail addresses (indicate who the corresponding author for the article should be); (3) any acknowledgments; and (4) brief biographical paragraphs (50 words or less) describing each author’s current affiliation and research interests.

Authors should also supply a shortened version of the title suitable for the running head, not exceeding 50 character spaces.  Each article should be summarized in an abstract of no more than 100 words.  Avoid abbreviations, diagrams, and reference to the text. Format for references and citations should conform to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition.  This may be ordered from the Publication Department, American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE, Washington D.C. 20002-4242, phone (202)336-5500, fax (202)336-5502.

Book Reviews
Book reviews should be sent to the attention of the editor (address above). Review essays as well as bibliographic articles and compilations are sought. Potential contributors of such material are advised to correspond with the editor.

Peer Review Policy
All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous refereeing by two anonymous referees.

Message adapted from CFP announcement.

Afro-Latinos in Movement: Critical Approaches to Blackness and Transnationalism in the Americas

Deadline: 15 June 2014

Editors: Petra R. Rivera-Rideau (Virginia Tech), Jennifer A. Jones (Notre Dame), Tianna S. Paschel (University of Chicago)

How do ideas about, and experiences of, blackness travel across the Americas? How does this circulation of representations of blackness – through popular music, the internet, print media, and scholarship – influence local ideas of race and nation?  How does (im)migration to and within the Americas shape and reshape understandings about blackness? Afro-Latinos in Movement – an edited interdisciplinary volume being prepared for Palgrave Macmillan’s Afro-Latino Diasporas Series – seeks to answer such questions. A collection of theoretically engaging and empirically grounded chapters and original artwork, this book will examine African-descended populations in Latin America and Afro-Latinos in the United States in order to explore broader questions of black identity and representation, transnationalism and diaspora in the Americas.  Afro-Latinos in Movement draws on previous works on race and blackness in Latin America and U.S. Latino communities, while also providing a uniquely hemispheric approach. The volume will build up from the U.S. context to critically examine how blackness, and more specifically afrolatinidad, is understood, transformed, and re-imagined across locales throughout the Americas. In this way, the volume emphasizes the multiple movements across geographic borders, and over time. Thus, Afro-Latinos in Movement will broaden and deepen the discussion on afrolatinidad in the Americas by providing a critical transnational approach to understanding blackness in the region.

Afro-Latinos in Movement will be arranged in three sections, each of which will emphasize the multidisciplinary aspect of this volume by incorporating a range of works including creative or biographical pieces. While the volume will highlight the circulation of ideas and identities across borders more generally, Afro-Latinos in Movement expects that about half of the contributions will center on Afrolatinidad in the United States.

To that end, Afro-Latinos in Movement invite manuscripts from both historical and contemporary perspectives that address topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• The role of social media and the internet in shaping afrolatinidad
• Afro-Latino cultural and political movements
• The impact of migration on understandings of afrolatinidad
• Representations of afrolatinidad in media (e.g. newspapers, magazines, digital media)
• Theoretical interventions on diaspora and transnationalism in the Americas

Submission Guidelines

Afro-Latinos in Movement invites complete manuscripts from all disciplines for inclusion in this volume, including relevant creative works.  All submissions (creative or scholarly) must be original.

All submissions are due by 11:59pm EST on 15 June 2014 and should include:

• Author(s) curriculum vitae as separate attachment;
• Manuscript title;
• Name, institutional affiliation, discipline, position or title, and contact information of author(s) including email address and phone number;
• Abstract of the paper or creative piece up to 200 words;
• Keywords (maximum of 6);
• All tables and illustrations;
• Brief (2-3 sentence) scholarly or professional biography of each author;
• Scholarly papers should be 5000 to 8000 words, inclusive of references;
• Poems, short stories, creative essays and biographical entries should be a maximum of 5000 words;
• Artwork should be sent jpeg format, compressed to no larger than 25 MB (larger formats will be used for publication).

Manuscripts should be submitted via electronic attachment (word or PDF file preferred) to: [email protected] with ‘Volume Submission’ in the subject line. CVs should be included as a separate document. Manuscripts may be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be reviewed continuously until the submission deadline. Final decisions will be issued to authors no later than 30th July 2014. Manuscripts will be published in English only.

Submitted manuscripts or artwork should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be reviewed by the editors for inclusion. Submissions will be continuously reviewed until the deadline. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page.

If you have any additional inquiries regarding the Call for Papers, submission guidelines, or volume series, please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

 Adapted from CFP announcement.