Call For Papers

African American Expression in Print and Digital Culture

Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture
University of Wisconsin, Madison
September 19-21, 2014
Madison, WI

Recent scholarship has brought attention to the possibilities of
disciplinary intersections of print and digital culture with African
American studies. For example, Leon Jackson has suggested numerous
“advantages to be gained from an alliance between book historians and
scholars of African American cultures of print” (Book History 13, 2010).
Recent edited collections like Cohen & Stein’s 2012 Early African American
Print Culture and Hutchinson & Young’s 2013 Publishing Blackness are strong
evidence in support of Jackson’s claim and the richness of the work to be
done in this field.

By not framing itself within a particular period or form of expression, the
conference seeks to further this conversation through a capacious
exploration of African American print and digital cultures. We hope the
conference will highlight work from a broad range of disciplinary
perspectives and will explore diverse objects of study in African American
media.

We imagine topics may include, but are certainly not limited to,
explorations of African American print and digital cultures and:

•    Book history, media studies
•    Reproduction, originality, imitation
•    Periodization, “Earliness,” “first-ness,” “post-ness”
•    Archives (actual and metaphorical)
•    Institutions, libraries, museums, collectors, programs
•    Sonic, visual, oral, and performance cultures
•    Anthologization and “recovery”
•    Periodicals and serialization
•    Publishers, readers, networks, platforms
•    Race, intellectual property, and the law
•    Digital media and social networks (e.g., #blacktwitter)
•    African American publics and counterpublics
•    The African diaspora, transnationalisms, hemispheric orientations

Proposals for complete panels (three 20-minute or four 15-minute papers),
complete panels of roundtable discussants, or individual papers should
include a 250-word abstract per paper and a one-page cv for each presenter.
Proposals for innovative forms of presentation are welcome in consultation
with the organizing committee. Submissions should be made via email to
[log in to unmask]. The deadline for submissions is January 24,
2014. Notifications of acceptance will be made in April 2014.

P. Gabrielle Foreman, the Ned B. Allen Professor of English and Professor
of Black American Studies at the University of Delaware, will deliver a
keynote address. UW-Madison Libraries and Wisconsin Historical Society
archives feature strong collections of African American literature,
history, and culture, and may be of interest to visiting participants.

As with previous conferences, we anticipate producing a volume of essays
expanded and developed from the conference for publication in the Center’s
series, “Print Culture History in Modern America,” published by the
University of Wisconsin Press. A list of books that the Center has produced
is available at our website (http://www.slis.wisc.edu/chpchome.htm) and the
press’ website (http://uwpress.wisc.edu/PrintCulture.html).

For information contact:
Jonathan Senchyne, Associate Director,
Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture
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or,

Anna Palmer, Coordinator,
Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture
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