You are invited to contribute to an edited volume which explores trans-Saharan artistic contacts from a trans-national and post-area studies perpsective. Africa has traditionally been viewed through a bifocal lens, in which the Sahara has been perceived as an impenetrable barrier, dividing the continent into northern and sub-Saharan Africa. Countries in the north continue to be considered within the domain of Islamic, Middle Eastern, Classical and Ancient Egyptian studies having little or no artistic contact with sub-Saharan countries considered more authentically "African". Scholars have failed to recognize that communication, correspondence, trade and travel, in partnership with nomadic movements across the Sahara, has been going on for several millenia. This intercourse among traders, scholars, artisans and nomads set the stage for the emergence of richly diverse aesthetic expressions both along the web of routes crossing the Sahara as well as at their terminii.

Papers should address the methodological, conceptual, stylistic or technical aspects of artistic creativity and performance, either contemporary or historic, which reflect aspects of this artistic discourse and/or which illustrate how the Sahara was/is a porous boundary, a bridge rather than a barrier, for the transmission and exchange of arts and culture.

If you are interested, please email a Title, an Abstract (c. 200 words) and a CV to either Cynthia Becker or Labelle Prussin by June 1, 2005. Queries are welcome.

Final essays, between 6000-8000 words plus illustrations, will be due on October 1, 2005.
Cynthia Becker (e-mail address shown below)
Labelle Prussin (lprussin@aol.com)