The 49th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association

Filiations and Affiliations

Bonds, Entanglements, and Social Networks in African Literatures and Cultures

University of Louisville, KY, USA — May 23-25, 2024

Drawing its inspiration from Edward Said’s discussion of the ways in which texts become ‘worldly’ through a series of filiations and affiliations, the ALA invites papers and panels that address such relations in all their forms. What are the filial structures that a text brings to its readers? What kind of affiliative readings might a critic bring to the text to disrupt the filial ties? What are the stakes in engaging in the traffic between filiative and affiliative readings? Beyond considerations of (a)ffiliated critical practice, how do literary and other cultural texts represent filiations and affiliations and in what ways do they constitute such relations? How do the practices of writing, reciting and performing in a variety of expressive forms help consolidate or disrupt filiative or affiliative ties? We invite papers and panels on all aspects of social relationships – filial and affilial as they manifest themselves in African literary and cultural texts.

Suggested topics include:

• Literary Affiliations: Pan Africanism and Negritude Movements  
• Autobiography as Affiliative Literary Form  
• Films, Novels, Plays: Linkages and Departures
• Trafficking in Texts: Literary, Visual, Social
• Africanisms, Mythology, and Folklore: Charting African Diasporic Affiliations and Entanglements  
• Afrofuturism and the Art of Affiliative (Dis)entanglement
• Affiliative Critiques and the Immigrant Writer  
• Affiliative Quests: Cultural and Heritage Tourism in African and African Diasporic Literatures  
• Technological Entanglements: AI and African Literature Futures
• Institutional Affiliations (professional associations/ writing programs)
• Writing in/as solidarity
• Writers’ Associations/Mentors and Protege(e)s
• Nationalism as Affiliation
• The Anti-affiliation of Boycotts

Proposals for individual papers (2000 characters in length) and/or proposals for complete panels, roundtables, and seminars (with individual paper abstracts of 2000 characters each) are invited by November 15th, 2023

Click Here to Submit a Proposal

This conference will be held in person only. There are no options for virtual participation.

Please note that participants will eventually need to both be active members and register for the conference.

For inquiries: ALAConf2024@gmail.com

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