Black Women and The Making of a New Diaspora

Much has been written on the creative ways in which writers and artists of the African diaspora transform and transgress geographical, cultural, and historical borders with their works. This anthology seeks to provide a platform for a new generation of women creative theorists to exemplify the ways in which these borders are transformed in the 21st century. Moving beyond the idea even of borders, Black women writers from Africa and the African diaspora (including first generation continental African women) chart new paths of resistance, providing new models for Diasporic existence that redefine gender, identity, sexuality, nation, nationality, race, ethnicity and culture. In this era of technological complexity, geographical borders, at the level of literature and art, have become erased, as women of African descent share in the cross fertilization of culture and history, language and voice.

The editors of this volume seek creative scholarship (meaning new critical approaches that acknowledge the creative as a space of critical engagement)that addresses the ways in which women of the new African Diaspora re-create diaspora in literature. Even as their works speak of specific locations, they are also intertwined, intersecting in creative and sociopolitical focus. Examples of the types of submissions requested are, but are not limited to: discussions of new voices amongst first and second-generation continental African women; performance poets and live artists; dancers. Please send all submissions in Microsoft Word format on a disk and two hard copies by January 31, 2002 to the addresses below.