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TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER THE SLAVE TRADE: AFRICA TALKS
| Call for Papers Date: | 2008-12-30 (Archive) |
| Date Submitted: |
2008-10-21 |
| Announcement ID: |
164711 |
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Since the last 18 months, two crucially significant events centering on Africa and Africans have been marked. These have been the 200th anniversary of the abolition by Great Britain of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and this year's 50th anniversary of the birth of Pan-Africanism in Africa. Both events, which are of course related, have prompted the urgent need for all Africans and non-Africans who are interested in African affairs to reflect on the past and the present of the continent, and to envision for the continent a future that would move Africa from her present pathetic and pitiable state to a height that would rhyme with the well-being of a land so lavishly endowed with human and material resources.
Perhaps, with the exception of origins, migrations and inter-group relations, no subject has received more sustained attention and provoked greater scholarly controversies in the chequered history of Africa and the Black world than the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Lasting between the 16th and the 19th centuries, Black slavery, in the words of G. W. F. Hegel, was for the Blacks " a trial by death". By the beginning of the 19th century, a conjunction of factors, essentially economic in character, conduced to the abolition of the evil trade. Two hundred years later last year, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is still considered among the causes of Africa 's present woes. Today, the current phase of this episode in the New World, Europe and Asia as characterized by the various forms of globalization indicates that there has hardly been any significant change in the perception of Africa and Africans since the formal abolition over two hundred years ago.
The same imperialist economic interests of the advanced countries have continued to prevail, and, as with the African middleman of the Slave Trade era, the present phase of the economic deprivation is succeeding with the active cooperation and support of Africa 's own neo-colonialist political leaders.
For the African scholar, therefore, several questions on the Slave Trade are yet to be satisfactorily addressed. Two hundred years after the official abolition of the evil trade and the intervening colonial rule, what lessons has Africa learnt from the sordid experiences of slavery and foreign domination? How can Africa address the common problem of treacherous and myopic political leadership? How does Africa react to the incidence of the exhumed trade in human beings that goes by the euphemism of human trafficking and domestic servanthood? What roles do the imported religions play in the underdevelopment of Africa today? What role does racism, a mere by-product of imperialism, play in the exploitative relations between Africa and the rest of the world? Why is it that policies and programmes, which have transformed several other erstwhile "Third World" countries, failed to do the same in Africa? Is there really any link today between slavery, colonialism, on the one hand, and Africa 's underdevelopment, on the other, several decades after the independence of many of these countries? How correct is it to interpret globalization as another form of slavery? Can we, in the light of these issues, agree with the organizers of last year's international conference in Ghana that the "bloody writing" is indeed forever torn here in Africa?
Further, Pan-Africanism in Africa as from 1957 was in reaction to imperialism and the need for Africa 's common front for the liberation of the continent. The Movement was basically an intellectual one, and its high intellectual input subsequently replicated in the struggle for independence on the mother continent. What, then, is the role of the African intellectual today (as heir to the Pan-Africanist) of yesterday in the neo-colonialist struggle to free the ordinary African from the thralldom and stranglehold of his own kith and kin in political office? What common bond exists today between the African in the Diaspora and his brother on the mother continent that would reminisce the Pan-Africanist spirit of 50 years or more ago?
The above issues and many more others are the focus of a forthcoming book, Two Hundred Years After the Slave Trade: Africa Talks. We are, hence, inviting scholars around the world, who are interested in Africa, to contribute to this publication, which is billed to mark these twin events of 200 years of the abolition of the Slave Trade, and 50 years of the Pan-African Movement. The publication will be multidisciplinary, and articles, which should be well researched, should particularly address the question of what can be done to improve the present intolerable low level of development in Africa.
Contributions are welcome in any of, but are not restricted to, the
following:
Ø Slave Trade and Africa 's Image
Ø The Concept of Race, Racism and Africa's Development
Ø The Image of African Diaspora in Africa
Ø Traditional and Indigenous Institutions and Africa's Development.
Ø Pan-Africanism and Africanist Movement in the last two centuries
Ø Africa 's Image in Foreign Media
Ø Colonial Boundaries and African Unity
Ø Africa 's Indigenous Knowledge and Contributions to Human
Civilization
Ø Globalization and its Impact on Africa 's Development
Ø Human Capital Flight Since Slave Trade
Ø Reparations for Africa.
The publication, which enjoys the goodwill and blessings of the US Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the body that last year in Ghana organized the highly successful and intellectually rewarding international conference on the abolition of the Slave Trade, is scheduled to be out within the second quarter of 2009.
v LANGUAGES: Submissions can be in English and other European
languages particularly Portuguese, Spanish and French.
v DEADLINES: The Abstracts, which should not be more than 250
words long, should be submitted on or before December 30, 2008, while the deadline for submission of the full papers of accepted abstracts will be March 2009.
Both the Abstracts and the full papers could be submitted to any of the following:
1. Professor Armstrong Matiu Adejo,
Department of History,
Benue State University ,
Makurdi,
Benue State ,
Nigeria .
E-Mail: armstrong_adejo@yahoo.com
2 Professor Nicodemus Fru Awasom,
Department of History,
University of the Gambia ,
Gambia .
E-mail: awasomnf@yahoo.com
3. Dr Joseph A. Ushie,
Department of English,
University of Uyo ,
Uyo, Akwa Ibom State ,
Nigeria .
E-mail: josephushie@yahoo.com
4. Dr Walima Tuesday Kalusa,
Department of History,
University of Zambia ,
Zambia .
E-mail: wtkalusa@yahoo.com
5. Ms Barbara Kritzinger,
Department of History,
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University , South Africa .
E-mail: s205012281@nmmu.ac.za
6. Peter Wafula Wekesa,
Department of History,
Kenyatta University ,
Kenya .
E-mail: pwwekesa@yahoo.com.
v FORMAT: Because of the expected multidisciplinary nature of the
submissions, both the MLA and the APA style sheets are welcome provided that the contributor is consistent in his/her preferred choice.
Professor Armstrong Matiu Adejo
Dr Joseph A. Ushie
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1. Professor Armstrong Matiu Adejo,
Department of History,
Benue State University ,
Makurdi,
Benue State ,
Nigeria .
E-Mail: armstrong_adejo@yahoo.com
2 Professor Nicodemus Fru Awasom,
Department of History,
University of the Gambia ,
Gambia .
E-mail: awasomnf@yahoo.com
3. Dr Joseph A. Ushie,
Department of English,
University of Uyo ,
Uyo, Akwa Ibom State ,
Nigeria .
E-mail: josephushie@yahoo.com
4. Dr Walima Tuesday Kalusa,
Department of History,
University of Zambia ,
Zambia .
E-mail: wtkalusa@yahoo.com
5. Ms Barbara Kritzinger,
Department of History,
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University , South Africa .
E-mail: s205012281@nmmu.ac.za
6. Peter Wafula Wekesa,
Department of History,
Kenyatta University ,
Kenya .
E-mail: pwwekesa@yahoo.com.
Email: pwwekesa@yahoo.com, s205012281@nmmu.ac.za, wtkalusa@yahoo.com, josephushie@yahoo.com, awasomnf@yahoo.com, armstrong_adejo@yahoo.com
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