GENERAL INFORMATION
ATLAS serves as a nexus for the study of African and African-diasporic languages, history, contemporary issues, and research at the University of Maryland with the goal of increasing the understanding of the African continent and its growing global influence. ATLAS seeks to highlight research and scholarship from a variety of academic disciplines. This program hosts numerous speaker series and an annual conference on the study of Africa and its diaspora; including African American, Afro-Latino, and Caribbean studies; bringing together faculty, staff, and students from the University of Maryland campus and beyond.
ATLAS CONFERENCE INFORMATION
The 2025 ATLAS conference will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park campus from Thursday, February 27th – Saturday, March 1st. The exact on-campus location for the conference will be announced at a later date.
ATLAS invites submissions for the 2025 annual conference from faculty, staff, and graduate students at UMD and other DMV-based universities. We are accepting proposals for panel presentations, roundtable sessions, and a poster session. The conference welcomes various academic fields and research interests centered on the topic of Africa and/or its diaspora, which includes African American, Afro-Latino, and Caribbean studies.
The theme for 2025 ATLAS annual conference is “Agency, Decolonization, and the Politics of Knowledge Production.” With this theme, we hope to foster interdisciplinary, critical discussion broadly related to the recent calls for an epistemic break with Western forms of knowledge and control. The “decolonization debate” has impacted a range of scholarly fields including literature and language, education, sociology and anthropology, geography, women’s and gender studies, psychology, international development and politics, environmental sciences, agriculture/land management, and public health, to name a few. We particularly welcome contributions that pay careful attention to the ways in which existing methodological, theoretical, or applied approaches to Africa and its diasporas undermine its intellectual contributions and solutions to contemporary social, economic, and political problems. Scholars from any discipline whose work engages issues related to issues of power, domination, and agency (broadly defined) within and between communities and identities; histories and intellectual traditions; politics and policies; social movements; migrations and displacements; natural and built environments; infrastructure and urban planning; religion and spiritualities; engineering; material cultures; languages and literatures; or media and other forms of cultural production in African and African-diasporic contexts are encouraged to submit an abstract (see below for more information).
Our Keynote Speaker will be Dr. Kwame Edwin Otu, Associate Professor in the African Studies Program at the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and author of the ethnography, Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana. Drawing on his recent work conducted among e-waste workers in Agbogbloshie and Sodom and Gomorrah, Dr. Otu's talk will illuminate how colonial configurations of power and dispossession are reproduced by the Ghanaian nation-state in its e-waste workers, who simultaneously embody and contend with the “slow violence” at the core of this postcolonial nation-state. These workers’ exposure to toxic fumes from burning obsolete technology paradoxically conceals and makes visible the necropolitical matrix that is the postcolonial nation-state. Thus, colonial inhalation articulates how the rhythms of breathing are adjudicated in this postcolonial nation-state. To this end, Dr. Otu's talk brings Frantz Fanon’s notion of “combat breathing” in conversation with the Ghanaian writer, Amu Djoleto’s novelization of the “vampire state” in his book Money Galore and ties these interventions with “Wasteman,” a song by the Ghanaian rapper, Black Sherif, to explain how the postcolony recalibrates logics of extraction and deposition.
SUBMISSION AND PARTICIPATION GUIDELINES
The proposal submission deadline is Monday, November 11, 2024. Notifications will be sent in early December. Participants can select from one of the following presentation formats:
- Oral Presentations
- Panel Session: A panel session consists of 4-6 participants, including an optional discussant, or as few as three presenters with a discussant. For this option, one or more of the panel participants should compose a panel session abstract of 200 words or less. Only one individual from the panel who is serving as the Panel Chair should submit the panel session abstract. The Panel Chair should also submit an abstract as an individual presenter, unless they are serving as the discussant. Individuals are encouraged to reach out to other potential paper presenters who have interests in similar topics and issues to collaborate on the panel. Each individual presenter must also prepare an abstract of 200 words or less.
- Roundtable Session: A roundtable session consists of 4-6 participants, including an optional discussant, or as few as three presenters with a discussant. For this option, one or more of the proposed roundtable participants should compose a roundtable session abstract of 200 words or less posing a provocation or series of questions that will be discussed, followed by a list of proposed participants and their affiliation(s). Only one individual from the roundtable who is serving as the Session Chair should submit the panel session abstract.
Time slots for panel and roundtable sessions are 90 minutes in length and may be in-person or hybrid. For hybrid presentations, at least one presenter/participant must attend the session in person.
Please note that we are not offering the option of submitting individually volunteered papers for the 2025 conference.
- Panel Session: A panel session consists of 4-6 participants, including an optional discussant, or as few as three presenters with a discussant. For this option, one or more of the panel participants should compose a panel session abstract of 200 words or less. Only one individual from the panel who is serving as the Panel Chair should submit the panel session abstract. The Panel Chair should also submit an abstract as an individual presenter, unless they are serving as the discussant. Individuals are encouraged to reach out to other potential paper presenters who have interests in similar topics and issues to collaborate on the panel. Each individual presenter must also prepare an abstract of 200 words or less.
- Poster Presentations: One or more poster sessions will take place throughout the conference. Poster presentations combine visuals and text, allowing presenters to present their research and speak casually with interested viewers. Abstracts of 200 words or less should be submitted for poster presentations. You will be provided a template to use for your poster. Completed posters should be sent in advance to be printed and mounted.
The only modality for poster presentations is in-person.
GENERAL GUIDANCE AND REVIEW CRITERIA
Presentations must be appropriate for a general audience. Unlike conferences that have special areas of focus and attract those within a specialized content area, the ATLAS conference is meant for a wide audience and to encourage cross- and interdisciplinary engagement.
Panel sessions require a session title, session abstract, and individual paper titles and abstracts for each participant. These sessions may have a singular disciplinary focus, or may organize an interdisciplinary group under a specific topic or theme. Proposed panel sessions are strongly encouraged to have at least one but no more than two discussants.
Roundtable sessions require a session title and abstract for the entire session. No individual talk titles or individual abstracts are needed. Roundtable sessions are intended to allow participants to discuss and share ideas with each other on a topic of shared interest. Roundtable sessions are strongly encouraged to have at least one but not more than two discussants. We recommend that the Chair provide participants with a series of questions to consider in advance of the session. We also recommend that the Chair provide a brief (3-5 minutes) opening statement.
Poster presentations require a title and abstract. Though this format allows for (but does not require) the presentation of research findings from a singular researcher, we encourage presenters to be prepared to engage with a general audience when discussing their work.
Please note that this is a small conference, and we will be unable to accommodate space for all submissions. Underrepresented topics and disciples will be prioritized.
Proposal submissions can be created using the forms available here.