HOWARD UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF WORLD LANGUAGES AND CULTURES
CALL FOR PAPERS

International Conference
Pan-Africanism and Negritude: Dialogues between Africa and the African Diaspora (Past, Present, Future)
Howard University
Blackburn Center
Washington, DC
November 4-6, 2015

Deadline to Submit Proposals: July 15, 2015
Extended Deadline: July 30, 2015

In its resolution 68/237 of 23 December 2013, the General Assembly of the United Nations (U.N.) proclaimed the International Decade for People of African Descent commencing 1 January 2015 and ending on 31 December 2024. The decade aims to strengthen the economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights of people of African descent, and adopt national, regional and international legal frameworks in accordance with the Durban Declaration on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, and to ensure their full and effective implementation.
In this context, a second International Conference, “Pan-Africanism and Negritude: Dialogues between Africa and the African Diaspora (Past, Present, Future)” (November 4-6, 2015) is being organized at Howard University to lead the forthcoming global activities regarding the U.N. recommendations and objectives. The first academic meeting at Howard University was an echo of the International Year for People of African descent proclaimed also by the U.N. in 2011.
The organization of this International Conference is intended to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the bond between Africans and African Diaspora, but also to the defragmentation of the memory of the scattered Africa and Africans caused by the slavery, colonization and (im)migration. Because, although an early Pan-Africanism and Negritude had strongly advocated for the pride of the cultural heritage, history, unity and empowerment of Africans and African Diaspora; although the music (i.e. jazz, blues, reggae, rumba, salsa, hip hop, rap, etc.), the language (creole, palenquero, etc.), the religion (vaudou, candomblé, santería, etc.), the food (malanga, fufu, gombo, etc.) and the (im)migration are today critical factors of relations between Africans and African Diaspora, many adverse challenges continue to pave the ways of their unity and empowerment.
Participants of all continents and all disciplines are encouraged to submit their proposals and foster in general the reflections –but not limited to- on what critical role the early Pan-Africanism, Negritude and Negrismo played on the dialogues between Africans and African Diaspora and on their empowerment; how to (re)negotiate both, the reconstruction of the scattered identities and the defragmentation of memories, and how to enhance unity and empowerment today; finally, what visions and key elements can be recommended to overcome the actual challenges and what mechanisms to realize such a recommendations. Academics, scholars, graduate students, journalists, fiction and non-fiction authors/writers, playwrights, filmmakers, educators, translators and interpreters, artists, publishers, community and movement leaders, civil right activists, NGO’s leaders, youth, etc. are, therefore, invited to submit individual paper, panel, roundtable, workshop, play, film screening and discussion, etc. At the end of the International Conference, the Scientific Committee will edit and publish a book of selected proceedings.

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