Faculté des Lettres et Sciences HumainesUniversité de Lubumbashi, RDCongoColloque internationalLubumbashi, 28-30 octobre 2020 Appel à communicationViolence, identité et construction de la Nation ArgumentaireLa violence est, aujourd’hui, un sujet qui suscite bien des débats. Michela Marzano, Séverine Autesserre, Nancy Rose Hunt, René Lemarchand et Denis Mukwege se sont penchés sur les causes et la nature de la violence, en République démocratique du Congo particulièrement. En effet, lorsqu’on parle de la violence dans l’espace africain, le Congo (RD) apparaît comme la métaphore de toutes les violences du continent. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie et Wole Soyinka, notamment, considèrent l’armée congolaise comme la première responsable de la violence. Les récits des récents conflits traumatiques au Congo illustrent le titre emblématique de Conrad « Heart of Darkness », c’est-à-dire « le Cœur des ténèbres », mettant en évidence la violence et les viols intensifs commis à la fois par des hommes et des femmes, qui touchent non seulement les adultes mais aussi les enfants (voire des bébés de trois mois) et les personnes âgées (même de plus de quatre-vingts ans). Le viol a été utilisé comme une arme de guerre non seulement sur le plan physique, mais aussi sur le plan mental à telle enseigne que des mères ont été contraintes d’avoir des rapports sexuels avec leurs propres fils et des pères avec leurs propres filles. Ces transgressions et ces humiliations ont violemment souillé et détruit le tissu social, économique et culturel de l'Est du Congo, mais elles ont également marqué la nation entière. Par ailleurs, le Congo (RD) n'est pas le seul pays à souffrir des problèmes de violence, de viol, ou d'identité et de nationalité. La Sierra Leone, l'Angola, le Soudan, le Rwanda, le Kosovo, pour ne citer que ceux-là, ont dû faire face à des problèmes similaires. Ces pays ont été marqués par la violence sur les plans physique, mental et économique. Quelle est la nature de cette violence et pourquoi la République démocratique du Congo est-il considéré comme le site de la violence par excellence, la capitale du viol ? Pourquoi les Congolais perpétuent-ils la violence ? Comment explique-t-on la mutilation des corps dans le Sud-Est du pays? Comment explique-t-on l'enlèvement et le viol des enfants et le cercle vicieux des viols de femmes? S'agit-il du prolongement des pratiques de l'armée coloniale ou des conséquences psychotiques des années de déshumanisation et de violence ? Bref, comment s’explique cette « héroïsation de la violence criminelle et sa mise en spectacle » (M. Marzano) ? De plus, comment une Nation s'identifie-t-elle lorsqu'elle est perçue comme étant «la capitale du viol » ? Comment peut-on se représenter l'homme congolais lorsqu'il est assimilé au viol de femmes ? Comment comprendre le viol et la violence...

Professor of English, Josna Rege, and Ross Griffiths, the librarian-archivist in charge of the Dennis Brutus papers, at Worcester State University, are producing a feature on Dennis Brutus in the Worcester Review. They are seeking contributors who might write a piece about Brutus’s poetry, teaching, activism, or engagement with the African Literature Association. The archive at WSU contains quite a bit of material reflecting many areas of his life, but for this feature the editors would like to invite contributions from ALA members who might have known him personally and/or who have studied/written on/been influenced by his life and work. Anyone interested in the project may contact Professor Rege by email at jrege@worcester.edu. Pieces would be due by mid-April, 2020 and could range in length from about 2000 to 3500 words. At the moment, the editors are visualizing a feature that would encompass Brutus’s scholarship, activism, and poetry with the possibility of including poetic responses to his work and perhaps a selection of shorter, more informal remembrances. They are flexible about the approach that any individual contributor might wish to take and would be glad to discuss the details with interested members.  For more information about the Dennis Brutus Collection at WSU, visit the following...

Africa 2020 Artistic, Digital, and Political Creation in English-Speaking African Countries Deadline Extended: January 31st, 2020 French President Emmanuel Macron announced on 3rd July 2018 in Lagos that a Special Season would be organized in France, from June to December 2020, to mark a renewed partnership with Africa, a “varied, strong and diverse continent that will play a part in our shared future”1. Even if this cultural focus cannot be abstracted from a broader geopolitical agenda marred by controversial presidential declarations (Joe; Iati), it nevertheless has the potential to offer a somewhat different coverage of the continent. One can only hope that it avoids the temptation to officially “curate into being” “exceptional” artists (Dovey 60), tapping into the all-too-familiar image of Africa as “the supreme receptacle of the West’s obsession with, and circular discourse about, the facts of ‘absence,’ ‘lack,’ and ‘non-being,’ of identity and difference” (Mbembe 4). Marseilles is undoubtedly set to play a major role in Africa 2020. The city’s special relationship with the continent dates back to its function as the first colonial port in France and persists in its multiple diasporic ties and recent position as one of Europe’s main transit points for African immigrants whose status is more and more precarious. One of the city’s major cultural festivals, the multidisciplinary Festival de Marseille, has embraced these historical, cultural, and social ties for the past three years, under Jan Goosens’ directorship. Building on the recent partnership signed between Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) and the Festival, the peer-reviewed journal of AMU research centre on Anglophone Studies (LERMA), E-rea, has decided to seize the opportunity of Africa 2020 to dedicate a special issue to contemporary creation in English-speaking African countries. The first part of this double issue will consist in a series of interviews with English-speaking African artists programmed at or connected with the Festival de Marseille, while the second part, which is the subject of this call for papers, will focus on English-speaking African countries as places of contemporary artistic, digital, and political creation. Heeding Kenyan political analyst Nanjala Nyabola’s advice to eschew the too reductive ‘Africa rising’ and ‘Africa failing’ narratives in favour of ‘Africa being’ stories, this special issue wishes to focus on “stories reflecting the ambivalence, complexity, challenges and opportunities of African societ[ies] in an increasingly connected world” (Nyabola xxiv). Asked in 2013 about the African contribution to a future world, South Africa-based philosopher and historian Achille Mbembe looked at the cultural history of the continent and identified “three attributes that can be conceptually deemed creative”: multiplicity, circulation and composition (Blaser). This special issue aims at recovering the multiplicity of creative African contexts, while bearing in mind the openness of these contexts, especially in...

Africa 2020 Artistic, Digital, and Political Creation in English-Speaking African Countries French President Emmanuel Macron announced on 3rd July 2018 in Lagos that a Special Season would be organized in France, from June to December 2020, to mark a renewed partnership with Africa, a “varied, strong and diverse continent that will play a part in our shared future”1. Even if this cultural focus cannot be abstracted from a broader geopolitical agenda marred by controversial presidential declarations (Joe; Iati), it nevertheless has the potential to offer a somewhat different coverage of the continent. One can only hope that it avoids the temptation to officially “curate into being” “exceptional” artists (Dovey 60), tapping into the all-too-familiar image of Africa as “the supreme receptacle of the West’s obsession with, and circular discourse about, the facts of ‘absence,’ ‘lack,’ and ‘non-being,’ of identity and difference” (Mbembe 4). Marseilles is undoubtedly set to play a major role in Africa 2020. The city’s special relationship with the continent dates back to its function as the first colonial port in France and persists in its multiple diasporic ties and recent position as one of Europe’s main transit points for African immigrants whose status is more and more precarious. One of the city’s major cultural festivals, the multidisciplinary Festival de Marseille, has embraced these historical, cultural, and social ties for the past three years, under Jan Goosens’ directorship. Building on the recent partnership signed between Aix-Marseille Université (AMU) and the Festival, the peer-reviewed journal of AMU research centre on Anglophone Studies (LERMA), E-rea, has decided to seize the opportunity of Africa 2020 to dedicate a special issue to contemporary creation in English-speaking African countries. The first part of this double issue will consist in a series of interviews with English-speaking African artists programmed at or connected with the Festival de Marseille, while the second part, which is the subject of this call for papers, will focus on English-speaking African countries as places of contemporary artistic, digital, and political creation. Heeding Kenyan political analyst Nanjala Nyabola’s advice to eschew the too reductive ‘Africa rising’ and ‘Africa failing’ narratives in favour of ‘Africa being’ stories, this special issue wishes to focus on “stories reflecting the ambivalence, complexity, challenges and opportunities of African societ[ies] in an increasingly connected world” (Nyabola xxiv). Asked in 2013 about the African contribution to a future world, South Africa-based philosopher and historian Achille Mbembe looked at the cultural history of the continent and identified “three attributes that can be conceptually deemed creative”: multiplicity, circulation and composition (Blaser). This special issue aims at recovering the multiplicity of creative African contexts, while bearing in mind the openness of these contexts, especially in the age of the internet,...

10th Annual African, African American, and Diaspora Studies Interdisciplinary Conference, James Madison University, Feb 20-21, 2020 **Proposal deadline extended to Nov. 1, 2019** The African, African American, and Diaspora Studies program at James Madison University invites proposals for its annual interdisciplinary conference, to be held on the campus of JMU in Harrisonburg, Virginia on February 20-21, 2020. This year's theme is “Black Temporalities: Past, Present, and Future.” Ranging across topics from oral history to Afrofuturism, the conference will bring together a group of scholars from a wide variety of overlapping and intersecting fields. The conference will feature a keynote presentation by novelist Nalo Hokinson (Midnight Robber; Brown Girl in the Ring), and a featured talk by the JMU Dean of Libraries, Dr. Bethany Nowviskie, who writes on liberatory and speculative digital library design. We welcome proposals from scholars in all relevant disciplines at any point in their scholarly careers. Proposals for 20-minute presentations or 60-minute panels could address topics such as: Afrofuturism Archaeology Black Digital Humanities Commemorative Practices Continuity Environmental Justice History Humanisms Memory Modernism Modernity Myth Oral Histories Postcolonial and Decolonial Knowledges Posthumanisms Queer Futurities Reclamation Reparations Rupture Science and Technology Slow Violence Speculative Fiction Trauma Witnessing  Please send any questions and/or 300-word presentation proposals (or 1000-word panel proposals) to aaadstudies@jmu.edu by November 1, 2019. Proposals should include a presentation and/or panel title, along with each presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, email address, and a brief bio. Panel proposals must include at least three panelists.   Decisions will be made by Nov. 15, 2019. Updates regarding conference registration and accommodation details will be posted to www.aaadjmu.com/ and will be provided to presenters as the conference date draws...

Dear African Literature Association Members, It is our great pleasure to invite you to contribute to a special section of the spring 2020 issue of the Bellingham Review. The section will be dedicated to new writing coming out of West Africa, under the title "Scribes, Griots, Poets: New Writing From West Africa". We would like you to tell us a story you simply ought to tell – we seek voices that need to be heard, words that must be written. We hope to publish powerful voices speaking to what is happening in West Africa now, but with one eye on tomorrow. This special section that showcases literature from this region follows previous international issues that were dedicated to writing from Palestine-Israel, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Canada and received great attention and exposure internationally. Poems, short stories, essays, as well as excerpts from oral and written traditions are welcome. We are seeking original submissions in English; if in translation, the writer must obtain the translator’s permission. We may be able to help locate a translator for French language submissions. We will also consider previously published work that was not published in the U.S. as long as the writer holds copyright. The work should not exceed 5,000 words, and we aim to pay an honorarium for each accepted work. Let us introduce you to the Bellingham Review. We are published out of Bellingham, Washington, at the 49th parallel of the United States, located on the Puget Sound. The Review has existed for more than thirty years, and it is a nationally and internationally known literary journal. In 2002, the Bellingham Review received the 2002 Bellingham Mayor Arts Award, as well as recognition by Newpages.com for innovative content and design. The journal received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in 2005, and we’ve introduced many emerging writers to the mainstream literary community and major publishing houses. Please visit our website at http://bhreview.org/ to see more of what we've been doing. Poems, stories and essays from the Bellingham Review have been picked up and reprinted in many venues, including Harper’s magazine, the Utne Reader, and in The Pushcart Prize Anthology (Best of the Small Presses). Also, to the best of our knowledge, the Bellingham Review is the only literary publication to have been part of a major league baseball broadcast. The Review is an exciting place to be, in other words, and we hope to feature your work in its pages. The deadline for submission is January 5, 2020 although earlier submissions would be much appreciated. If you plan to submit, please let us know as soon as possible, along with what you will send and, if pertinent, translator information. Upon...