Few would argue that the idea of double consciousness as explicated in W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk does not continue to inform contemporary epistemologies about and interpretations of the black American subject. This reality is all the more interesting given the various ways that conceptions of ontology and phenomenology have been embraced, advocated, troubled and dismissed since the initial deployment of double consciousness. In this post-modern age, how has double consciousness changed and, perhaps more importantly, how does it need to change? What issues does double consciousness fail to take into consideration and why? Given the reality of cultural intersections and liminality whereby the black American subject negotiates more than two identities on a quotidian basis, how necessary is it to advocate for a post-double consciousness understanding of the black American subject, one that takes into account those issues that double consciousness, in its original conception and current instantiation, does not? How does African American literature (fail to) address this understanding?

Submit abstracts and/or full-length papers by March 25, 2005 to Chris Bell at the e-mail address provided below. Questions and ideas for papers and presentations are welcome.

Note: In order to present at the MMLA Convention, participants must remit organization membership and conference dues to the organization by June 1, 2005. Full details about this painless process are available at the MMLA website (web address follows).