Generational Curses, Fights, and Traumas in Francophone African Literature (NeMLA Panel, on line)

This online panel explores how African literature engages with the (re)-generation of memory, identity, and resistance through intergenerational conflict, inherited trauma, and so-called generational "curses."

In response to NeMLA’s 2026 theme, "(Re)-Generation," we invite papers that examine how African authors narrate the past as it echoes across generations—reproducing cycles of violence, colonial aftershocks, or familial legacies, while also imagining rupture, healing, or rebirth. How do African literary works—across genres, decades and regions—depict the psychological, political, and spiritual weight passed down from parents to children, from ancestors to descendants? What modes of storytelling, memory-making, or resistance emerge in the struggle to break, rewrite, or survive these inheritances?

Topics may include—but are not limited to—postcolonial hauntings, gendered or queer genealogies, child protagonists as vessels of trauma or agents of change, and the literary representation of family conflict as a site of (re)-generation. We particularly welcome contributions that center African voices, languages, or traditions, and that interrogate how African literature negotiates the tension between fate and futurity, especially in Francophone contexts. This panel aims to foster conversations across disciplines and geographies, inviting scholars to consider how African literature reclaims agency in the face of generational violence.

Submissions in English or in French can be made on the official webpage: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/21581