Deadline: August 1, 2019 Special Issue of the Journal of the African Literature Association Egypt in Focus: Creativity in Adversarial Contexts Guest Editors: Nevine El Nossery (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Shereen Abouelnnaga (Cairo University) The current socio-political situation in Egypt raises fundamental questions about the state of the arts and the future of literature and culture in the country. While the first years after the 2011 Egyptian Revolution witnessed the emergence and flourishing of new literary and artistic expressions (auto-fictional blogs, music festivals, protest songs, slam poetry, documentaries, photographs, TV talk shows, graphic novels and comics), today, culture and cultural production are facing an unprecedented enforced silence. And where that silence is pierced through, a striking sense of disillusionment and uncertainty marks the sensibilities of significant aesthetic creativity. This special volume examines the complex paradoxical predicament of a seemingly irrepressible expressive context under the thralls of an imposed gloomy hush. It also addresses how individuals and institutions navigate the inflicted muteness through different strategies. For artists, writers, and intellectuals, the revolution is an unfinished ongoing project that still fuels their art and praxis. Submissions are invited on topics that include but are not limited to: The rise or sharp growth of certain expressive genres (the dystopian novel and its varieties, popular/colloquial poetry, short films, testimonials and documentary works) New modes of self-expression and subjectivity. The conspicuous surge in creative writing courses (and the economics of access to them). Publishing, circulation, and censorship. Social media and agency. The literary text: a site of social activism or individual expression? The rise of the individual in the contemporary Egyptian novel. The city: a friend or foe? Women reading history and oral history. Women's poetry and the image of the Father. The discourse of State-run media: whitewashing or pink-washing? Governmental sponsorship of cultural activities. Transnational circulation of translation and international recognition vs. national obscurantism. Literary scholarship and journalistic commentary after the Revolution. Submission of Papers Essays should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words; should be Word documents, using MLA format for layout and citation. Essays are to be submitted in two forms: (i) a full version with author’s details, and (ii) a completely anonymized version. Please send your essays electronically to Nevine El Nossery (elnossery@wisc.edu) and Shereen Abouelnaga (shereen66@gmail.com) by May 1st, 2019, using the subject heading “JALA Egypt Special Issue.” (those who have questions can contact the guest editors). For those who want comments on a particular topic or abstract before writing the full article, please email Nevine El Nossery (elnossery@wisc.edu) and Shereen Abouelnaga (shereen66@gmail.com) Preparing Your Paper Please consult JALA’s advice to authors on preparing a manuscript here: https://tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rala20&page=instructions All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Articles must not have...

Deadline: February 1, 2019 Call for Papers The North Africa Caucus of the African Literature Association is seeking papers for a Special Issue of the Journal of the African Literature Association devoted to North Africa. North African Literatures Beyond the Francophone Maghreb The study of North African literatures has been firmly rooted in francophone frameworks since the 1960s, an approach that perpetuates colonial categories of both space and language. We propose a special issue of JALA that will approach North African literature beyond the geographic and linguistic limitations of the so-called Francophone Maghreb. The work presented in this special issue will address a series of under-studied questions in the field of North African literary studies. How do other languages in the region, such as Arabic, Tamazight (Berber), and Spanish intersect with French? How do individual North African works, writers, artists, or filmmakers problematize monolithic definitions of nationalism and regional identities? How do authors in the diaspora experience their North African identities in new languages and new contexts? How do the literatures and cultural productions of the Maghreb relate to the rest of Africa, and to other spaces such as the Middle East, the Mediterranean? In order to begin answering these questions, we seek submissions that address the diversity of North African literatures, particularly their ties to various linguistic traditions, genres, regions, and spaces. Submission of Papers Essays should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words; should be Word documents, using MLA format for layout and citation. Essays are to be submitted in two forms: a full version with author’s details, and a completely anonymized version. Please send your essays electronically to zbentahar@towson.edu by February 1st, 2019, using the subject heading “JALA SI Maghreb.” Preparing Your Paper You can access the journal’s advice to authors on preparing a manuscript here: https://tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rala20&page=instructions All submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Articles that have been published previously, or that are currently being considered for publication elsewhere, will not be considered for this Special...

Deadline: April 30, 2019 CALL FOR PAPERS For Special Issue: JALA - Journal of the African Literature Association https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rala20/current Editors for the Special Issue: Tom Odhiambo (University of Nairobi): tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke or odhiambotom@gmail.com Godwin Siundu (University of Nairobi): Godwins57@gmail.com or godwin.siundu@uonbi.ac.ke Inge Brinkman (Ghent University): Inge.Brinkman@UGent.be THEME of the Special Issue: TEXT, PARATEXT AND CONTEXT IN AFRICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES Abstract Always straddling and dismantling the boundaries between truthfulness and imagination, between memory, concealment and referentiality, between psychology, history, geography and literature, between the individual and the communal, autobiographical narrative invites the audience to (re-)consider the relations between text and context, or text and co-texts. In its counter-discursive capacity, the postcolonial autobiographical narrative has been especially emphatic in this respect: its critical constellation in the end rests on reference to political practices and hierarchies beyond the text, weaving palimpsestic layers of (counter-)meanings. In this light it is not surprising that many auto/biographers in and of Africa have stressed the importance of realism for their work, and they and their publishers often employ various strategies – in the text, but also in paratextual elements – to enhance the effect of realism as the starting point of meaning-making. Meanwhile, discussions on autobiographical narratives in and of Africa have over the last decades expanded to include oral genres and artistic performances, life histories, auto-ethnographies, online blogs and Facebook pages, apart from the more classic form of a published book. This begs the question how relations between text and context are established in these more recent forms of autobiography. In this special issue for JALA we will focus on text, paratext and context in autobiographical narratives from Africa. We welcome papers that deal with African autobiographical narrative in whatever form – published, online, oral, visual, performative and textual –, and in principle from any discipline or from an interdisciplinary perspective. Possible subthemes for articles within the sphere of African autobiographical narrative may include, but are not limited to: The self, the social and the political History, memory and the literary Self-representation, translation and editorship Power, legitimacy and self-narrative Trauma and testimony Prison life writing Gender, queerness and sexual identities Race, class, and self-assertion Intellectual networks and self-narrative Oral and written self-narratives Visuality, materiality, performance and self-narrative New media and new modes of self-narrative Please send your paper to the editors of the Special Issue: tom.odhiambo@uonbi.ac.ke; odhiambotom@gmail.com; Godwins57@gmail.com; godwin.siundu@uonbi.ac.ke; Inge.Brinkman@UGent.be before the 30th April 2019 while adhering to the style guidelines as detailed under this link: Taylor & Francis quick layout guide A typical paper for this journal should be no more than 8000 words, inclusive of tables, references, figure captions, footnotes,...