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The
Middle-Atlantic Writers Association, Inc.
MAWA Conference
The
Caribbean Presence
in Black Thought, Letters, &
Arts
Deadline for Proposals: August 15, 2003 The Middle-Atlantic Writers Association, Inc.,
invites scholars, educators, creative writers, publishers, book
dealers, patrons of literature and community leaders to join in
a major cultural and literary dialogue that addresses a subject
seldom discussed fully and with complete openness--"The
Caribbean Presence in Black Thought, Letters and the Arts."
This landmark conference will bring together major scholars in
literature, sociology, psychology, history and media arts to
examine closely these aspects of African and African American
history and culture. Papers are invited on (but are not
limited to) the following topics:
Caribbean Folklore and Oral Literature
a. Male/Female
Representation in Caribbean Oral Literature
b. The Picaresque
Character in Caribbean Folklore and Oral Literature
c. Caribbean
Folktales and Folksongs
d. Self versus the Community in Caribbean
Folklore
The Caribbean Writer and Society
a. Race and Gender in
Caribbean Writing
b. The Caribbean
Writer as Political Activist
c. Caribbean Women
Writing About Their Societies
d. Caribbean
Autobiographical Writing
e. The Literature of the Caribbean Slave Trade
Self and Society in French and Spanish Caribbean
Writing
a. From Negritude to
Creolite
b. Gender and Race in
the Literature of French and Spanish Caribbean Writers
c. African Influences on Literature, Politics
and History
Caribbean Artistic Expression
a. Regional Musical
Expression and Its Relation to Society
b. Caribbean Musical
Expression in Reaction to Its Times
c. Representations of the Caribbean in American
Film and Television
The Association welcomes proposals that address all aspects
of this theme from individuals who want to
a. present scholarly
papers of 15-20 minutes
b. present one-hour
panels of two, three, or four participants
c. read from original
creative works
d. present
audio-visual displays
e. present book and
arts and crafts displays and sales
f. perform dramatic
works
g.. host sessions and luncheons by other
literary and scholarly organizations
SEND PROPOSALS TO: Dr.
Sandra G. Shannon / Department
of English / Howard
University / Washington,
DC 20059
OR Email
proposals in the body of the message to
sshannon@howard.edu
Deadline for Proposals: August 15, 2003 / Conference
Dates: October 15-18, 2003
All participants must become a member of MAWA. and pay the
current conference registration fee
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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Ratification
The People Debate the Constitution,
1787-1788
By Pauline Maier
A notable historian
of the early republic, Maier devoted a
decade to studying the immense
documentation of the ratification of the
Constitution. Scholars might approach
her book’s footnotes first, but history
fans who delve into her narrative will
meet delegates to the state conventions
whom most history books, absorbed with
the Founders, have relegated to
obscurity. Yet, prominent in their local
counties and towns, they influenced a
convention’s decision to accept or
reject the Constitution. Their
biographies and democratic credentials
emerge in Maier’s accounts of their
elections to a convention, the political
attitudes they carried to the conclave,
and their declamations from the floor.
The latter expressed opponents’
objections to provisions of the
Constitution, some of which seem
anachronistic (election regulation
raised hackles) and some of which are
thoroughly contemporary (the power to
tax individuals directly). Ripostes from
proponents, the Federalists, animate the
great detail Maier provides, as does her
recounting how one state convention’s
verdict affected another’s. Displaying
the grudging grassroots blessing the
Constitution originally received, Maier
eruditely yet accessibly revives a
neglected but critical passage in
American history.—Booklist |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 23 May 2009
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