CFP: Transatlantic Africas – Special Issue of Matatu: Journal for African Literature and Society

Jan3 by Katie Reid

Proposals for papers/abstracts should reach the editors by 1 April, 2013.

The editors of Matatu: Journal for African Literature and Society invite contributions for a special issue on “Transatlantic Africa” to be published in 2014. The special issue will focus on recent literary and cultural interactions between Africa and North America (USA, Canada, the Caribbean) and will explore the transnational, transcultural and transregional dimensions of contemporary African literature. While special emphasis is to be placed on the emergence of new, late 20^th and 21^st century African diasporas in North America and their significance for African literature and culture, the editors also invite contributions highlighting the relationship between ‘older’ African diasporas that emerged in the wake of transatlantic slavery and contemporary African diasporas based on 20^th and 21^st century transmigration. African/North American interactions to be addressed in the Matatu special issue include:

• Imagined Africas in the literature of the new African diaspora

• Imagined Americas in African literature

• Literature, migration and exile

• Transnational/transcultural/transregional? Understanding the deterritorialized dimensions of African Literature

• Transatlantic lifeworlds in contemporary African literature and culture

• Transatlantic Africa and the medialisation of texts: web technologies and the creation of new literary communities

Proposals for papers/abstracts should reach the editors by 1 April, 2013 and should be sent to: Gordon Collier (Gordon.R.Collier@anglistik.uni-giessen.de), Geoffrey Davis (davis@anglistik.rwth-aachen.de), Christine Matzke (christine.matzke@uni-bayreuth.de), Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (remraj1@yahoo.com) and Frank Schulze-Engler (schulze-engler@nelk.uni-frankfurt.de).