Call for Papers: Water is Power: African Visual Culture
Panel sponsored by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association

Iba Ndiaye Diadji called water fundamental to "African being." Possessing voice, vitality, and value, water has a magnified place in African cultures, whether celebrated in bounty or meditated on in absence. Scholars have looked at water as foci of performance, altars, and blessing and cleansing accoutrements, and of everyday rituals to wash away harm. This panel seeks new ways in which African artists have approached water as power. Topics may include but are not limited to: art that reflects water's natural force (drought, hurricane, flood); art that depicts marine life or seascapes; water as a creative force (through water-based mediums); water as bodily constitution (sweat, tears, etc.); water as politicized source (struggles over access and sanitation); water as channel for immigration; water as crosscurrent (port into slavery); and water as rivers of exploration and exchange. This panel welcomes new studies of water's effective presence in rituals that can broaden the vision of water's power in African visual culture.

Proposals due May 9, 2008.

Contact Shannen Hill
University of Maryland-College Park
Art History and Archaeology
shill@umd.edu

1211-B Art-Sociology Building
College Park, MD 20742