Call for papers "Africa and the Atlantic World" 27-28 september 2013, Greenvile, NC, USA

Second Call for Papers "Africa and the Atlantic World" Fall 2013 SERSAS Conference East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA 27 - 28 September 2013

The publication of Fernand Braudel's _The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World_ (1949), the creation of the African Studies Association in 1957, and the formation of the World History Association in 1982 all provided inspiration for John Thornton's _Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800_ (1992). Prior to and in the years following the independence of Ghana in 1957, Africanists worldwide had scorned Eurocentric views on African history, notoriously asserted by Hugh Trevor-Roper in his BBC broadcast of 1963, and had begun to research and publish the history of Africa from the diversity of African perspectives. This inter-disciplinary effort culminated in UNESCO's eight-volumed _General History of Africa_ (1981-1993). That body of knowledge has expanded ever since, seen in part in the logs of H-Net's Africana family of listservs. Recently, some Africanists have taken their collective knowledge of the Mother Continent and presented it in a world perspective. _Africa in World History_ (2004) by Erik Gilbert and Jonathan Reynolds helped initiate this tradition in college survey texts. Concurrently, Africanist scholarship has intersected with that of scholars of Atlantic World European, Native American, and African American studies to provide the foundation for new Atlantic World programs.

Held on campuses bi-annually throughout the southeast since 1973, the Southeastern Regional Seminar in African Studies (SERSAS) will be hosted this fall by East Carolina University. Those of you who attended the last SERSAS conference at ECU in the fall of 2001 may remember the festive musical performance of the SERSAS Structural Adjustment Blues Band led by guitarists Jonathan Reynolds and Kevin Greene. This year's music program, which will coincide with Friday evening's SERSAS welcome reception, will be a performance of Afro-Andean music by Zamba Yawar conducted by Mario Rey. Four exhibitions of ECU's African art collection will be on display throughout the university to celebrate both our SERSAS conference and progress to date to establish an African art museum on ECU's campus. Sharon Pruitt, ECU's African art historian, will share the history of ECU's African art collection. Dorothy Redford, who led the restoration of nearby Somerset Place from the perspective of its slaves, will be the guest speaker for SERSAS conferees. This Second Call for Papers for the Fall 2013 SERSAS Conference seeks to give faculty, independent scholars, and graduate students the opportunity to share scholarship within the friendly atmosphere for which SERSAS is renowned. The coordinators of SERSAS cordially invite you to present your work within the wide parameters of the conference theme, "Africa and the Atlantic World." Proposals may fall within but are not limited to the following topics: -

Commercial linkages between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans

- Slavery in Africa and the Americas

- African and Native American societies in the Atlantic world

- Palmares and Maroon communities

- African agency in the trans-Atlantic slave trade

- African religion, Christianity, and Islam in the Atlantic World

- African art in the Atlantic World

- African music in the Atlantic World

- Resistance and collaboration in slavery

- The Diaspora in the Caribbean

- Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Du Bois

= Abolition movements

- Slave ships

- Role of technology in shaping the Atlantic world

- Legacies of the Atlantic slave trade in the Atlantic world


Please send your 200-word proposal and brief resume to Kenneth Wilburn < wilburnk@ecu.edu> no later than 1 August. SERSASians especially invite graduate students to present papers and compete for the 2013 SERSAS Award for the best graduate student paper, which carries a stipend of $100. Registration for the conference is $30, payable on site, which will also serve as your annual SERSAS membership dues. Participants will be informed of local arrangements as the conference dates approach. Updates can be accessed by visiting the web site for SERSAS: http://www.ecu.edu/african/sersas/homepage.htm The Fall 2013 SERSAS Conference will be held concurrently with ECU's 1st International Interdisciplinary Conference on Religion, whose theme is "Religion, Immigration, Health, & Human Rights: Challenges and the Way Forward." Organizers plan to share sessions where themes overlap. Friday evening's reception and Afro-Andean music performance by Zamba Yawarwill be attended by both groups.

The URL for that conference's announcement is: http://www.ecu.edu/religionprogram/docs/conference-2013.pdf

The Fall 2013 SERSAS Conference is co-sponsored by ECU's African and African American Studies Program, Atlantic World Program, Department of History, Ledonia Wright Culture Center, School of Art and Design, School of Music, and Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences. Please join us for what promises to be another exciting and friendly SERSAS Conference at East Carolina University. --