Conference Description

The study of the African diaspora has become a vibrant area of research and teaching in recent years across disciplines. Few efforts have, however, been made to clearly situate, delineate, and reflect on the practice of diaspora scholarship within the possibilities and constraints afforded and imposed by the disciplines. Interdisciplinary dialogue on the theoretical contours of the African diaspora is even rarer. In order to begin filling these significant gaps, the African Diaspora and the Atlantic World Research Circle at the University of Wisconsin brings together leading scholars in over a dozen disciplines for a two-day international symposium.

The aims of the symposium are two-fold:

• to theorize, define methods, problems, and conflicts of "doing" African diaspora research and scholarship from various disciplinary perspectives;

• to initiate and facilitate interdisciplinary dialogues and debates on African diaspora studies.

The ultimate goal of the symposium is the publication of an edited volume that will stand as a definitive statement for some time to come on the ways that the African diaspora is understood, produced, enabled and constrained in and by the various disciplines. This is not a symposium for the presentation of primary research on the African diaspora; it is devoted solely to meta-level conceptual examinations of the practice of African diaspora studies within and at the intersection of the disciplines.

• We have specified topics for our invited speakers to cover. In order to encourage serious and focused dialogue during the symposium, we request that speakers submit their full papers at exactly five weeks before our meeting. The papers will be pre-circulated to all invitees, thereby allowing presenters to make only abbreviated comments before opening up for questions and discussion. Papers should address fundamental questions about the way the African diaspora is approached in particular disciplines or discursive formations. Examples of questions to address might include the following:

• Is the African diaspora seen as a discrete field within your discipline? If so, how is it distinguished from other fields like African American studies, migration studies, etc.? In short, how does your discipline define the African diaspora?

• What are the major methodological conventions of your discipline, particularly as they relate to the African diaspora? Are these methodological conventions consistent across fields in your discipline, or does the study of the African diaspora require different kinds of approaches/questions?

• Are there conflicting approaches to African diaspora studies within your discipline? Must the diaspora include Africa, or does it include secondary migrations like those from Brazil to Nigeria, or Jamaica to England and Canada? Are there any theoretical/methodological tensions between those who study earlier streams of the diaspora (like those associated with the Atlantic slave trade) and those who study more recent streams (like those of contemporary African migrants to the US)?

• What is the relationship of your discipline to other disciplines as it relates to the study of the African diaspora? Does your discipline draw heavily from the approaches and methodologies of other disciplines? Is your discipline in conflict with another discipline over approaches to diaspora?

• Has the practice of African diaspora studies impacted your discipline in any way? What are the constraints and possibilities of doing African diaspora in your discipline?

In addition to the broad questions outlined above, speakers should also address more specific questions/issues that are germane to their disciplines or formations.