Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East
Call for Papers
France in Africa/Africa(ns) in France
The post-independence special relationship of France with its former colonies in Africa has left a dense im-print on both regions. The manifold cultural, political, technological, economic and demographic flows that comprise this relation are the focus of a projected special issue of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East entitled France in Africa/Africa(ns) in France. We seek critical essays on any aspect of this bilateral relationship and welcome multiple disciplinary perspectives and critical approaches. We are par-ticularly interested in papers that explore regions, groups, or movements currently underrepresented in the criti-cal literature and in papers that examine the dynamic between two geographic poles. While the focus of this is-sue will be on post-independence French/African relations, we are also open to papers that historicize this rela-tionship or assess the legacies and displacements of colonialism. We would, for example, be interested in con-sidering essays on:
Diasporic communities and their construction; the politics of home, departures, and returns; identity formation, transnationality, and globalization; legal, medical, or economic perspectives on immigration, refugee status, airport international zones, and sans papiers;
French military and diplomatic interventions in Africa; peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and democra-tization efforts; nation and national identity formation; foreign policy initiatives; war and cultures of violence;
Development; land and natural resource management; bilateral sustainable development programs; ur-ban, infrastructural, and technological modernization;
Educational ventures; Francophone movements;
Communication technologies; internet, television, news media; publishing;
Joint ventures by NGOs; civil society; grassroots politics;
Representations of French and Africans; (transformations) in museums, histories, commemorations, ethnography;
Dance, music, literature, graffiti, popular culture, fashion, youth cultures, cinema; cultural productions of the banlieu; global or multinational expressive forms;
Religion; intersections of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous African religions;
cross cultural constructions of gender, sexuality, feminisms;
Human rights and aid organizations; public health initiatives, AIDS and malaria treatment; trade initia-tives, debt management; legal and juridical assistance;
transplanted cultural practices and law.
Please submit scholarly essays of between 5,000 and 12,000 words (note and reference inclusive) by June 1, 2004. Essays should be formatted in Chicago style and use the Library of Congress transliteration system for Romanization, without diacritical marks. Further formatting information is available on our website at . We prefer electronic submissions to Madeleine Dobie (mld2027@columbia.edu) and Rebecca Saunders (rasaund@ilstu.edu). (If electronic submission is impossible, essays may be submitted in hardcopy to Rebecca Saunders, Department of English, Box 4240, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790, USA.) We also welcome relevant books for review or proposals for review essays.