Conference
African American Identity Travels
September 17-18, 2004
Maryland Room, Marie Mount Hall, on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland
Program | Participant Bios and Abstracts | Visitor Information | Contact
Conference Description
How have African American people, ideas, culture and politics traveled outside the U.S. and what has been the effect of those travels on the identity and politics of black people within the United States?
Movement has always been a central theme in the histories and cultures of African Americans. This conference will take up that theme by focusing on African American travel. Participants will reflect on what African American people, culture and politics look like when they travel abroad and how those travels/travelers returned home provide us a fresh perspective on African American culture, identity, and politics within the U.S. Conference presenters will explore the means and avenues of diasporic wanderings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; European and African travels in the construction of twentieth century African American culture; the relationship of U.S. political struggles to international audiences; and the place of African American music and sport in the implementation and critique of U.S. foreign policy. A special session focused on graduate student work-in-progress will explore some of the new directions in the study of African Americans' travel.
The conference is explicitly interdisciplinary, bringing together a national group of scholars from the fields of History, English, African American Studies, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Anthropology, who work in the area of African American Internationalism.
Conference attendees whose research focuses on African American travel are invited to share their work at a Saturday networking luncheon.
Conference Organizers
Elsa Barkley Brown, Departments of History and Women's Studies
Mary Helen Washington, Department of English
The conference is free and open to the public.
Conference Program
Friday, September 17, 2004
9:45 - 10:00am
Welcome, Opening Remarks
10:00 - 11:45am
The Meaning of Travel
Julius Scott, History and Afroamerican Studies, University of Michigan
"Travel and the Origins of the Black Atlantic"Sandra Gunning, English, American Culture, Afroamerican Studies, University of Michigan
"Imperial Subjectivity, Gender, and 19th Century West Indian Emigration to Africa: The Case of Robert Campbell's A Pilgrimage to My Motherland"
11:45am - 1:00pm
Lunch Break -- on your own
1:15 - 3:15pm
Writing Travel, Writing Identity
Rhondda Thomas, English, University of Maryland
"Piety, Performativity and the Politics of Freedom in the 18th Century Atlantic World: Briton Hammon from Negro Man to Englishman"James T. Campbell, Africana and American Studies, Brown University
"Apropos Prepossessions: Reading Nineteenth-Century African American Travel Accounts of Africa"
3:15 - 3:30pm
Break
3:30 - 5:30pm
Travel and the Remaking of African American Culture
Kelly Quinn, American Studies, University of Maryland
"The Wrecked Continent of Europe as Laboratory for Hilyard R. Robinson: Towards a History of African American Modernism in the United States and Abroad"Penny Von Eschen, History and Afroamerican Studies, University of Michigan
"The Goodwill Ambassador: Duke Ellington and Black Worldliness"
Saturday, September 18, 2004
9:00 - 9:30am
Continental Breakfast
9:30 - 11:45am
African American Identity Travels Work-in-Progress
Herbert Brewer, History, University of Maryland
"Making Africa, Making African America, 1790-1840"Yvette Green Pittman, English, University of Maryland
"From Expatriation to Transnationalism: Faith Ringgold's The French Collection"Laura C. Williams, English, University of Maryland
"J. Saunders Redding and Integration: Excising the Shadows of Race and Liberalism amid Cold War Politics"Shaundra Thomas, English, University of Maryland
"World Without End: Race, Integration, and Black Literary Transnationalism, 1956-1998"
11:45am - 1:15pm
1:30pm - 4:00pm
The Politics in Travel
James Miller, English, Africana Studies and American Studies, George Washington University
"'Think Globally, Act Locally, Think Locally, Act Globally': The Scottsboro Case Travels Everywhere"Maureen Mahon, Anthropology and African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
"Eslanda Goode Robeson, Anthropologist, Pan-Africanist, and Public Intellectual"Patrick Hill, Ethnic Studies, Bowling Green State University
"Sport and the Remaking of African-American Internationalism in the Cold War Era: Lessons from the Harlem Globetrotters' Early Goodwill Tours"
4:00 -5:00pm
Conference Conclusion, Final Remarks
Conference Networking Lunch
All conference attendees are invited to join the presenters for lunch
on Saturday. Attendees whose research focuses on some aspect of African
American Identity Travels are encouraged to bring copies of a one-page
statement of your research project including contact information to share.
Beverages will be provided. You may bring a brown bag lunch or there are
several nearby places where lunch may be purchased. If you wish to purchase
lunch directly from the conference, please do so before September 3 by
emailing identitytravels@umd.edu or calling 301-405-4290.
Visitor Information
The conference is free and open to the public; no registration is required.
African American Identity Travels will be held in the Maryland Room of Marie Mount Hall.
For visitor and parking information go to: http://www.umd.edu/visitors.
Sponsors
African American Identity Travels is sponsored by the Center for Historical Studies; the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the African Diaspora; Coordinating Council for Equity and Diversity; the Office of Graduate Recruitment, Retention, and Diversity; the African American Studies Department; and the American Studies Department.
For Further Information
Contact:
African American Identity Travels
Elsa Barkley Brown
Department of History
2115 Francis Scott Key Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, Maryland 20742
TEL: (301) 405-4290
FAX: (301) 301-314-9399
identitytravels@umd.edu