Academics Write Black: Blacks Recreating Higher Education in the New Millennium
The Center for Black Studies at Portland State University is seeking submissions for an edited volume analyzing the state of Blacks in higher education in the U.S. Academics Write Black focuses exclusively on the critical perspectives of black women and men at the graduate, faculty, staff, and administrative levels in academe.
The place of blackness in the academy remains a point of contention despite, and in spite of in some contexts, the emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism. Though it is clear that the problem is no longer a matter of blatant exclusion, what persists is that many Black academics find themselves struggling to make blackness (and being Black) relevant in predominantly white institutions of higher learning. Consequently, the academy becomes a battlefield delineated by familiar struggles of race and privilege and Black academics rarely find themselves comfortably situated in the institutional design of the Eurocentric American academy.
Academics Write Black adds to the ongoing debate about the place of the Black intellectual in the American academy. The purpose is to reinvigorate the emphasis on defining what it means to be Black in higher education through critical narratives and other analyses that capture central concerns.
The editors invite papers in the following thematic areas:
Theoretical and institutional perspectives on blackness and being Black in the white academy.
Discussions about blackness and its relation to diversity and multiculturalism concerns.
Concerns that cover the inclusion/exclusion of blackness in your discipline.
Narratives that capture department/discipline sensitivity to blackness in curriculum/research development and its influences on (a) collegiality and (b) tenure considerations, etc.
Getting your work published and funded.
Teaching blackness and countering whiteness in the classroom.
Black women, sexuality, and the intersectionality of blackness in the academy.
Evaluating the role of Black Studies inside of predominantly white institutions.
The future development of blackness and the academy.
Reconciling the connection between black communities and the academy.
Gender (masculinity, femininity, and transgender) in how blacks navigate the academy.
Intra-community tensions and dilemmas between black members of higher education.
The influence of Black diasporic spiritual traditions in surviving the academy.
Strategies for maintaining emotional/mental health in a hostile academy.
Sexual orientation, class, and/or physical disability as a factor in black aspirations in the academy.
Activism and pedagogy.
Blacks and Adjunct/Surplus Labor in the academy.
Intellectual biography of leading figures in the field, assessing contributions and areas for further work.
We envision the text as a “survival manual” for those laboring, studying, and teaching in higher education. The goal is a volume that poses creative, transformative solutions as the assault against the inclusion of blacks and other people of color continues.
Please forward a 200-word bio and completed papers (please, no abstracts; 5,000 word/25-page, double-spaced, 12-point font)
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