This seminar is a follow-up to a conversation started a year ago at the ACLA Annual conference in Toronto. Our 2013 panel, entitled “(Re)formulations of Blackness in 21st-century France,” engaged with the definition and remapping of Blackness in the Hexagon. To continue and expand on this dialogue in 2014, we would like to welcome papers that focus on the role played by the French capital, Paris, in defining the contours of the black experience inside and outside of France. Paris has been historically linked to local and global representations of the black body. From the Expositions Universelles of the 19th century to the jazz scene of the Golden Twenties to 21st century Barbés-Goutte-d’Or, the French capital remains a nexus of exchanges and transcultural circulation of black tropes.

The seminar welcomes papers that innovatively engage with:

• The City of Light in Afro-diasporic literatures and films
• Definition(s) and realit(ies) of a black community in Paris
• Sexualities and Black queer identities in Paris
• Representations and images of the black body in Paris
• Paris and (its echo in) the Black diaspora
• Black Paris in/and the French national narrative

Paper proposals of up 250 words should be submitted by Nov. 15th to the ACLA conference website (http://www.acla.org/submit/ Select our seminar “Black Paris” in the drop-down menu)

Please email me with any questions or concerns. (mniang@andrew.cmu.edu)

SEMINAR KEYWORDS: African Diaspora, Blackness, Body, Citizenship, Paris, Race,
Sexuality, Representations