More Questions Than Answers

In September 2012, I left London for Oxford. A few days after my arrival I emailed my new supervisor to arrange that all-important, but nerve-wracking, first meeting. In our email exchange Stephen Tuck broke the news: “Am showing the editors of Callaloo journal round Oxford tomorrow ahead of a conference of theirs, here, next year—which should be timely for you.” Delighted and slightly surprised, within minutes I replied, “Great news to hear about a Callaloo conference in Oxford—I am already excited and looking forward to it.” My excitement stemmed not just from the presence of Callaloo, for the first time in Europe in the imperial city I now called home, but the possibilities and promise of discussions about the transatlantic, Africa, and its diaspora between and among students, scholars, and the local community. Over a year later Callaloo arrived. What transpired between the 27th to the 30th of November was nothing short of stimulating and challenging intellectual exchanges that left my body and mind feeling tired, enthused, and fulfilled, all at the same time.

The 2013 Callaloo Conference commenced with a postgraduate and early career workshop organized by members of the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities Race and Resistance Across Borders in the Long Twentieth Century Network, including myself. The topic of the workshop was centered on “Britain, Europe, and the African Diaspora.” Its aim was to assess the related fields of diasporic, global, and transnational African and African American studies by focusing on the multivalent roles of Britain and Europe. Consciously aware that most recent developments in the field have taken the United States or Africa as the starting point and/or key frame of reference, the workshop sought to explore how the story of any given transnational topic changes when Europe, including Britain, becomes a central focus of the story.

The call for papers sparked a flurry of proposals from both the continent and diaspora, and the chosen speakers came from South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Topics discussed included re-thinking definitions of empire, nation, and diaspora; border crossing women like Paulette Nardal, Eslanda Robeson, and Una Marson and their fight against fascism in the 1930s; black female internationalism; The Ovid and Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood; the transnational connections between New York and Europe as seen through Claude McKay’s writings; the cadre of African Americans living in interwar Paris and the figure of Rosey Pool. Additionally and appropriately given the location, other papers examined the multiple expressions of Black Britishness as evidenced through the experiences of post-war Commonwealth subjects, the fiction of black British female writers, the women’s liberation movement, and Rap music. What I found most interesting about the workshop was the courage and confidence displayed by speakers willing to offer novel ideas about old and new stories, concerning travel, mobility, migration, and identity. The workshop was a lively launchpad for the Callaloo Conference, so much so that it finished half an hour later than scheduled. The group was encouraged to continue our numerous conversations beyond the workshop and conference. These conversations had already begun and developed as the group left the Radcliffe Humanities Building for the keynote given by acclaimed Kenyan novelist, essayist, playwright, editor, academic, and social activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at the main venue for the conference, Pembroke College.

The power of language was at the heart of the headline lecture. Already familiar with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s ambivalence towards the English language, I was not surprised to hear his talk on the ways in which people of African descent were perfecting their European accent to gain access to money, oil, wealth, and education. His lecture was fascinating and as a historian trained in imperial and world history, I am aware of the colonial legacies that inform the hierarchies between African and European languages. However, I left the lecture thinking about the other complexities of imperialism and its relationship to other languages. For many children with African Empire-loving parents who routinely stressed the importance of English, French, and German for...