Remapping the Black Atlantic (Conference)
Diaspora: (Re)Writings of Race and Space

DePaul University
April 12-14, 2013
Abstracts due October 20, 2012

From conference announcement:

It has been two decades since the publication of Paul Gilroy’s seminal book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993) which marked a pivotal shift in our understanding of the experience of transnational Black modernity. More than simply understanding Black experiences from around the Atlantic basin as being marginal to or derived from the culture of modernity, Gilroy argued that for over a century and a half, Black intellectuals have travelled and worked in a transnational framework that precludes anything but a superficial association with their country of origin. Expanding on DuBois’ crucial notion of “double consciousness,” Gilroy argued for a modernity broad enough in, scope not simply including the marginal positions of slaves, but also positing the “ungenteel” aspects of slavery and terror as fundamentally crucial to understanding modernity itself. Since the publication of Gilroy’s influential book, there has been a lively and sustained engagement in rethinking the history of African Diaspora and indeed the history of modernity itself. Continue reading Remapping the Black Atlantic

A workshop for junior researchers to be hosted by the Society of Caribbean Research (SoCaRe) and the Institute of Romance Languages at the Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany).

January 23-25,  2013 (Application deadline July 31)
Hannover, Germany

The workshop aims to provide an opportunity for junior researchers (especially doctoral and postdoctoral candidates) to present their projects and engage in interdisciplinary cooperation on current perspectives regarding decolonial gender issues within Caribbean Research. Presentation languages are English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

See full CFP here for more information.

Please send paper abstracts (300 words) to [email protected] by July 31, 2012.

50th Anniversary Conference
University of Glasgow

May 10-11, 2013 (Abstracts due by October 31, 2012)

Regularly cited as one of the great sports books of the twentieth
century, C.L.R. James’ Beyond a Boundary (1963) is, by his own
famous definition, about far more than cricket. Developing a concern to
understand sport as part of a much wider social and political context (a
concern first articulated in his earlier writings for the Glasgow Herald),
James’ study is part-autobiography, part-historical study and partpolitical-
call-to-arms written against the backdrop of the decolonisation
struggles. His reflections thus reach out into a critical account of racism
and imperialism, into wider questions of aesthetics and popular culture,
and into the struggle for revolutionary social change which was the
enduring concern of his life. Crucially, James insisted that such
questions were not simply of concern to academics or to experts, but
were also a central part of what drew ordinary men and women to
sport.

Much loved, and widely read, James’ study has also been the subject of
searching criticism: he has been accused, among other things, of a
failure of critical judgement in relation to cricket’s role in the moral
framework of empire, of a lack of attentiveness to gendered
inequalities, and of a naïve faith in the spontaneity of popular political
resistance.

This conference is convened on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of
the publication of Beyond a Boundary, with the intention of both
celebrating and questioning, drawing out the book’s intellectual
legacies and identifying the issues it leaves unanswered. We would
welcome original papers dealing with any aspects of Beyond a
Boundary. These might include:

• critical engagement with or reinterpretation of James’ arguments
• studies of the production and reception of the book itself
• interpretations, via James, of contemporary sport
• reflections on the transnational responses to James’ text
• discussion of Beyond a Boundary within James’ wider corpus and in relation to his political practice
• papers reporting on the use of James’ insights and methods in social research, in teaching, in journalism or in political activism.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Andy Smith:
[email protected] by October 31, 2012.

In keeping with James’ own practice, we would ask potential speakers to avoid unnecessary technical jargon,
and to prepare papers intended for a general audience.

Already confirmed keynote speakers for the conference are Mike
Brearley (former England Test captain and previously President of the
British Psychoanalytic Society), and Wai Chee Dimock (Department
of English, Yale) and Robert A. Hill (History, UCLA and C.L.R.
James’ Literary Executor).

An International Conference

Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and Francophone Studies
Florida State University, 14-16 February 2013

Confirmed speakers: Arnold Antonin, J. Michael Dash, David Geggus, Dany Laferrière, Kettly Mars, Rodney Saint-Eloi. Bob Shacochis

Conference artist: Édouard Duval Carrié

Special closing event: Dany Laferrière at 60, a celebration

Despite its long periods of economic and political isolation, Haiti has always been an important global center, and a particularly modern entity. Born out of the anticolonial struggles of displaced peoples, an amalgam of diverse languages and cultures, it is quintessentially and irrevocably a creation of global modernity. In the earliest days of the nation, Haiti was not considered by its leaders as an anomalous state or an accident of history, but as an integral part of the Americas and of the broader world. Haiti was the center of a new energy that upset established orders across the globe, throwing up a set of challenges, changes, and paradoxes, the effects of which can still be felt to this day. In Haiti’s subsequent history, it has remained a global center, and its triumphs and struggles and their implications and meanings have always overflowed their immediate temporal and spatial contexts. Refusing to be seen as an aberration, a freak of history, Haiti and its meanings still exceed and go beyond its Caribbean borders, and have shaped the history and culture of the broader Americas and the world in significant, if often hidden and obscured ways. Moreover, contemporary globalization continues to have a significant impact on Haiti as it adjusts and responds to the political and social upheaval of the past decade.

This conference develops questions explored in the events organized by the Leverhulme Trust-funded Oxford Caribbean Globalizations project. Its aim is to bring to light Haiti’s role in shaping history, culture, politics and thought beyond its borders and throughout its history. Importantly, too, we aim to understand how the broader developments in global history and associated processes of globalization have impacted on Haiti. The global frame incorporates other frames, including the Caribbean, the Americas, and the Atlantic World; and we also invite proposals that consider Haiti’s position in any of these other geographical, continental and regional frames. Most generally, we welcome proposals for papers that offer new understandings of Haiti’s place in the world, and the world’s place in Haiti. The conference is interdisciplinary, and we encourage proposals for single papers and panels that offer innovative new approaches that relate to the following, non-exhaustive list of possible themes:

• The Revolution as a global event
• Haiti’s natural history and environmentalism
• Aristide and the Global Left
• Haitian music in the diaspora
• Haitian religion in the diaspora
• Global religious movements in Haiti
• Haitian visual art and its global presence
• Global commerce and its effects on Haiti
• Haiti in global literature
• Haiti in travel writing
• Haiti in film
• Global aid organizations and Haiti
• Global responses to disasters in Haiti
• The 2010 earthquake and its after-effects

To submit a proposal for a paper or a panel, please visit the following page: http://www.fsu.edu/~icffs/haiti_call_paper.html

Deadline for submissions: September 14, 2012.

For further information, please contact Martin Munro, [email protected] or Charles Forsdick, [email protected]

The Question of the Social Sciences
A Small Axe Essay Competition

Small Axe is keen to encourage work in the critical and interpretive social sciences. We are interested in the ways in which such disciplines as anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology seek to grapple with the regional and diasporic Caribbean. This interest stems partly from the fact that the social sciences have been central, historically, to the construction of the “Caribbean” as an object of scholarly inquiry, and central therefore to what we understand the problems are that require investigation and interpretation. But in the past several decades there has been a considerable disciplinary upheaval (engendered by the rise, for example, of poststructuralism, postcolonial studies, and cultural studies) such that the character of the social sciences has altered, and perhaps also social science modes of engaging and constructing the
Caribbean. Continue reading The Question of the Social Sciences