10th International Conference of CAAR, March 13 to 16, 2013

Agnes Scott College, Decatur/Atlanta, GA, USA 

DREAMS DEFERRED, PROMISES AND STRUGGLES: PERCEPTIONS AND INTERROGATIONS OF EMPIRE, NATION, AND SOCIETY BY PEOPLES OF AFRICAN DESCENT

One hundred and fifty years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and fifty years after the March on Washington and the death of W. E. B. Du Bois, the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) holds its biennial international conference for the first time in the United States. We are meeting in Atlanta, bastion of the civil rights movement, the home of Martin Luther King Jr., and brief residence of W.E.B. Du Bois. The conference will address the diverse and complex ways that people of African descent have understood, embraced and challenged configurations of political entities and the societies within them. The focus goes well beyond the United States to every part of the world, where Blacks have grappled with conflicting sentiments like those famously expressed by King in his “I Have a Dream” speech fifty years ago: South Africa, where Blacks challenged their exclusion from the Union declared in 1910; Columbia, Dominican Republic, and Honduras, where  Afro-Columbians, Afro-Dominicans, Haitians, and Jamaicans were marginalized in elaborate nation-building mestizaje projects; France, where Guadeloupans,  Martinicans, and continental Africans encounter conflicting experiences as Blacks and citizens of current Overseas Departments and former French colonies; Germany, where African American poet, lesbian and activist Audre Lorde inspired a movement of Afro-German women; Australia, where the increasing presence of immigrants and refugees from Africa is complicating the nation’s goals as a designated multicultural society; and India, where the Siddis of Gujarat are increasingly questioning their marginalization and invoking their roots as “forgotten Africans.” These few examples illustrate the broad geographic and cultural scope of the conference.

While in the twenty first century and the “Age of Obama” some dare to dream of a post-racial world, racial polarization, inequality and interracial tensions persist, as clearly underscored by ongoing horrendous situations and episodes: from the disproportionate incarceration of black males to the killing of Trayvon Martin. CAAR in the American South thus presents the opportunity for scholars, teachers and students of the Black experience to revisit and interrogate the human and civil rights claims and failings of empires, nations and societies. Following in the footsteps of Du Bois and King, as well as Lorde and other black feminists and female activists, the contemporary fight against racism and White hegemony continues to be an intellectual endeavor and a commitment to understand the systematic organization of racism, ideologically, politically, culturally, and economically. In this era, when anti-intellectualism (and particularly anti-Black intellectualism) is growing, the CAAR conference is both timely and urgent.  

As with previous conferences, CAAR 2013 is interdisciplinary and welcomes comparative and dialogic projects. Therefore, the Conference Planning Committee and the Executive Board solicit proposals for complete panels and individual papers in various disciplines and area studies: literature, history, political science, philosophy, linguistics; music, art, religious studies, women’s and gender studies, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender and queer studies, culture studies, film studies, disability studies, African, African American, Caribbean, Latin American, European, and Asian studies.  Submissions on all epochs and geographic areas are welcomed.

Please send a one-page abstract for an individual paper or a two-page abstract for a panel and a one-page CV or multiple one-page CVs by August 15, 2012 to caar2013(at)agnesscott.edu.  

Looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta.