Announcement

Submission Deadline: June 3, 2013

This special issue of Research in African Literatures seeks papers that situate Africa at the center of aesthetic inquiry that takes place in the wider black Atlantic. It has been two decades since the publication of Paul Gilroy’s path-breaking book, The Black Atlantic, which identified a hybrid counterculture to modernity in the real and metaphorical journeys of African-descended peoples across the Atlantic. A range of scholars have seized on these transnational circuits to reveal the exciting possibilities released by such patterns of mobility and exchange and yet Africa is curiously absent, often times appearing as the “dark continent” in conceptual constructions of the black Atlantic when it is not relegated to some timeless past as a mythic origin for a diasporic culture.

This special issue seeks to shift the center of black diaspora studies by considering Africa as constitutive of black modernity. How does placing Africa at the center of the black Atlantic, rather than its forgotten past, force a rethinking of existing formulations of race and empire, nation and diaspora, gender and sexuality? What role does Africa play in diaspora, as a discursive sign, a geo-political region, an invented idea? Moving beyond Afrocentric, nostalgic, or racially essentialist positions, the discourse of Afro-pessimism, or that of a celebratory globalization, how do debates about Africa power conceptions of black modernity and postmodernity? Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: black nationalism and liberation discourses; Pan-Africanism and transnational anti-colonialism; Afro-pessimism and Afro-futurism; Post-apartheid South African explorations of memory and history; literary form and genre; sovereignty, citizenship, immigration and social belonging in a neoliberal world order; terrorism; piracy; gender and sexuality; global African writers like Chris Abani, Dinaw Mengestu, Teju Cole, Helen Oyeyemi; postcolonial cities and the global metropolis.

Papers are expected to conform to the standard RAL guidelines published in every issue of the journal and all submissions will be subject to peer review. The editor encourages potential contributors to establish early contact via email to ygoyal@humnet.ucla.edu.

The editor invites submission of original, previously unpublished article-length manuscripts (not exceeding 35 pages in length). Articles that have been published elsewhere in any form, version, or language cannot be considered for publication, including those that are available on the Internet. Manuscripts may be submitted in English, French, or other languages, but they will generally be published in English. “Blind” copies of articles that are formatted according to the RAL house style should be sent, along with an accompanying cover letter, to ral@osu.edu.

Research in African Literatures will not send out for review any articles that are under consideration elsewhere, nor will we consider multiple submissions by the same author. Authors of articles that have been accepted for publication will be required to sign a consent-to-publish form, which is an agreement vesting copyright in Indiana University Press.

RAL follows the MLA Style Manual, 3rd ed. (2008). Chapters 6 and 7 offer documentation and bibliographic information, including web publications, television or radio broadcasts, film and video recordings, and other common sources in addition to periodical and nonperiodical print publications. Please note that articles that do not conform to our house style may be returned to the author before being considered for publication.

1. 1. Manuscripts should be submitted as email attachments, preferably as Word files (.doc or .docx), be double-spaced, use a 12-point standard font (e.g., Times New Roman), and have one inch margins.

2. 2. In addition, the article must include (1) a 150-word abstract and (2) a list of works cited, following the MLA Style Manual bibliography guidelines.

3. 3. Include all endnotes (if used) as a separate file. Do not use word processor features that embed notes as footnotes or endnotes. Note numbers should be prepared as Arabic numerals in superscript and normally occur at the end of a sentence, not following an author’s name.

4. 4. All images must be submitted in electronic files, as PDFs or JPGs. (Large electronic files may be sent through a file-sharing service, such as Dropbox or YouSendIt). It will be the responsibility of the author...