Call for Papers
In Honor of Stuart Hall Hybridizing and Decolonizing the Metropole: Stuart Hall, Caribbean Routes and Diasporic Identity

The Editors of African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal (Routledge) announce a Call for Papers on " Hybridizing and Decolonizing the Metropole: Stuart Hall, Caribbean Routes and Diasporic Identity."

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning decades of the 20th century, colonial and postcolonial migrants from Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe and Antigua and elsewhere in the Caribbean sailed in the reverse directions of the 'middle passage' with all their apprehensions and arrived in the metropole particularly in London, Paris and elsewhere in the metropole to create 'new possibilities for those whom they encountered and decolonizing the world about them (Schwartz, 2003). Those who made the journey to the metropole, as Schwartz noted, "...were not without history, not just immigrants. In their speech, in their dedication to a certain styling of self, in their music - let along in their formal artifacts of literary culture - they brought their history with them" to metropole. As Stuart Hall (1991:48-49) memorably remind us that, "people like me who came to England in the 1950s have been there for centuries; symbolically we have been there for centuries. I was coming home at the bottom of the English cup tea. I am the sweet tooth, the sugar plantation that rotted generations of English children's teeth. There are thousands of others besides me that are you know, the cup of tea itself. Because they don't grow it in Lancashire, you know ... There is no English history without the other history."

The movements of colonial and postcolonial Caribbean migration forward and backwards across the Black Atlantic represented a specific history of crossing from a diverse geographical sites as well as the specific politics shaped by the realities of the colony and metropole, the decolonization process itself as well as the migrant-based demographic and cultural shifts which brought into sharp focus notions of home,
belonging, diaspora, identity, nationality and historical memory.

Focusing on theme of hybridizing the metropole, Caribbean routes and diasporic identity, the Guest Editors seek contributions that illuminate the ways in which Stuart Hall made fundamental contributions to the study of politics, popular culture, media, race, diaspora, culture, postcolonialsim and related fields since his arrival in the metropole. In particular, contributors are encouraged to explore the full dimension of Start Hall's work as well as his political engagement as a public intellectual. We also seek contributions
that examine the broad impact of Stuart Hall in the field of African and Black Diaspora Studies as well as African American Studies, Caribbean Studies and related fields.

Proposed papers should address one of the following thematic clusters.

• Stuart Hall: Encountering the Metropole
• Stuart Hall: The Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies
• Stuart Hall: Diaspora and Cultural Hybridity
• Stuart Hall: Public Sphere and Discursive Space
• Stuart Hall: The Politics of Representation and Ideology
• Stuart Hall: The Politics of Race and Identity
• Stuart Hall : Post-colonialism and its aftermath
• Stuart Hall: The Politics of Knowledge and Emancipatory Politics

Authors are encouraged to submit provocative original writing (conceptual, empirical or theoretical) that emphasize the work of Stuart Hall in different transnational settings and diasporic routes.

Abstracts should be 400-500 words in length. Authors should send their material with the abstract attached as a Word document. Please be sure to include the following: full name, university affiliation, contact information (e-mail and mailing address) and the title of your abstract to the Guest Editors:

The Editors of African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal announce a Call for Papers for a special issue on Creolization and Trans Atlantic Blackness: The Visual and Material Cultures of Slavery.

European colonization forced a variety of populations into extended and imbalanced contact. United by the Atlantic Ocean, the populations and cultures of the Americas were disrupted and remade in a process that had slavery at its center. The transplantation of Africans as slave labour across the Americas was coupled with the containment, exploitation, assimilation and genocide of indigenous peoples and the strategic exploitation of other "undesirable" groups (ie. Irish, Asian etc.). Within the Trans Atlantic World, identities were constantly policed to ensure the maintenance of racial, social and cultural hierarchies. The effects of this cultural and social clash are often referred to as creolization.

For the enslaved, creolization can be defined as the transformation of Africans into "blacks" and the concomitant changes that occurred in the social habits, music, dress, culture, religion, language, food and art of these populations. For Africans, creolization was always experienced under duress since slave owners and colonialists created policies and laws, which prohibited the practice of African cultures. But they also strategically condoned, even celebrated slave culture for their own enjoyment or political benefit.

While creolization has been extensively examined as language, politics, and social control, art historical (visual cultural) inquiry has been scant. This special issue seeks contributions on the creolization of visual art and material culture of diasporized Africans and the visual representation of creolized populations within the context of Trans Atlantic Slavery. Articles that explore "high" and "low" art, popular culture and material culture are welcome and may include (but are not limited to) painting, drawing, architecture, printmaking, photography, clothing/dress, carnival, scarification, tattooing, self-care and hair styling. Comparative research (across regions or populations) is also welcome.

Prospective contributors are invited to send a short bio/affiliation (200 words) and abstract (300 words maximum) in English to the Guest Editor: Dr. Charmaine Nelson, McGill University, Montreal, Canada at: [email protected]

African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal is devoted to a critical interrogation of the trans/ national movements, locations and intersections of subjectivity within the African Diaspora in the context of globalization as well as in different discourses, practices and political contexts. The journal maps and navigates the theoretical and political shifts imposed by the nation- state to provide a counter- narrative of subject positions of people of the African Diaspora, grounded in cultural and political responses.

 

  

For more information on the conference scheduled, panels, presenters please visit  http://cola.unh.edu/cnec/2015-bnec