CALL FOR PAPERS
"Post-Bellum African-American Resistance Narratives"
Proposed MLA Special Session, New Orleans 2001
We are seeking papers that examine post-Civil War African-American
narratives of resistance to white cultural norms. Such papers should
examine literary and historical materials in the years following the Civil
War and attempt to address some of the following questions:
* how do African Americans challenge white cultural norms through the
retelling or reappropriation of American history?
* how do these narratives account for traditional American mythologies of
the self-made man and rugged individualism?
* what are the social, political, and legal challenges posed by African
Americans during this time period?
* how do post-bellum narratives of resistance appropriate tropes of
freedom and equality from the Revolutionary era to the Civil War?
* how are these narratives impacted or shaped by the emergence of
modernity and the development of new technologies?
* how do these narratives create an image of Africa for the reunited
American nation?
* what demands are made by African-American authors and critics during
this time period?
* how do these appeals differ from antebellum ones?
* what response was received by African-American authors and critics?
Please send a 1-2 page abstract and brief CV (hardcopy or email
attachment) to either address below by March 28, 2001.
Matthew R. Davis
University of Washington
Department of English
Box 354330
Seattle, WA 98195
mrdavis@u.washington.edu
or
Dennis Chester
1216 1/2 Carleton Street
Berkeley, CA 94702
dchester@csuhayward.edu
All panel members must be members of the MLA by April 1, 2001.
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CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
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