2014 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
| Project/Area Number |
25370324
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| Research Institution | Kansai University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
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| Keywords | slave trade / community |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
I started the academic year 2014-2015 with the annual Sydney Writers’ Festival. In addition to attending many panels and readings, I conducted a long interview of South-African born Australian poet John Mateer. Our discussion revolved around the issues of history, trauma, memory, and nostalgia, which pervade Mateer’s recent works, especially Southern Barbarians (2011), and Unbelievers or, The Moor (2013). In agreement with Mateer, I intend to publish this interview, which I titled “The Ex-White,” in the United States. “The Ex-White” is currently under submission at The Conversant, a reputed online journal of interviews and poetry. My research has also led to two conference papers: In March, I presented “Tamango and Roots Onscreen: The Politics of Race Consciousness” at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) annual conference in Montreal, Canada. And in June, I will present “Demythologizing the Allmuseri Tribe in Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage” at the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) biannual conference in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.
Reason
Over the past academic year, I worked on two talks that were selected for two major international conferences―the SCMS annual conference in Montreal, Canada (March 2015), and the CAAR biannual conference in Liverpool, UK (June 2015). I have also published two essays central to my research. The first essay, “Political Principles and Ideologies in Charles Johnson’s Middle Passage,” is forthcoming in the Spring issue of Transatlantica: American Studies Journal, which is one of the leading journals in the field of American literature and culture in Europe. The second essay, “The Slave Trade as Memory and History: James A. Emanuel's ‘The Middle Passage Blues’ and Robert Hayden's ‘Middle Passage’,” has just come out in the latest issue of African American Review, the journal of reference for African American studies in the United States. These two publications are important because, combined with the above-mentioned conference papers, they correspond to chapters or parts of my book project, Narrating The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Contemporary Fictions and Theories of Community. I have written a thirteen-page long project that I have just submitted to a major university press in the United States. I have devoted a lot of work to this project and already written about 100 pages on the subject. I am hoping to bring this project to fruition by the end of 2016.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
For the upcoming academic year, I intend to divide my work between two main activities. On the one hand, I want to further my research in relation to my book project, Narrating The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Contemporary Fictions and Theories of Community. This year, I aim to tackle the more ambitious aspect of my book, which engages the work of prominent contemporary philosophers such as Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben, Alphonso Lingis, and Roberto Esposito. All these thinkers are at the cutting edge of theories of community, and the latter part of my book aims to show how the transatlantic slave trade verifies but also complicates and even contest such theories. On the other hand, I am hoping to find opportunities to disseminate my ideas either through lectures or conference talks. I have been following the academic activities of Institut du Tout-Monde (ITM), the Paris-based research center named after the work of Caribbean writer and philosopher Edouard Glissant, whose theories of Relation and All-World are essential to put the slave trade in both historical and ontological perspectives. I have already used Glissant in my work on the slave trade and would like to set up a talk with the ITM in the upcoming academic year. Finally, I am considering sending a proposal for either of two panels at the upcoming annual Modern Language Association (MLA) conference to be held in Austin, Texas. One panel is “Jean-Luc Nancy and the Concept of Community,” and the other is “The Black Carceral Imagination.”
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| Causes of Carryover |
As shown in the section Research Plan for the Upcoming Year, the last academic year was devoted, in good part, to the elaboration of my book proposal. My initial plan was to participate in two international conferences, but I decided to change my plan and give priority to my book proposal. Hence I gave a talk at one conference only, at the end of the academic year, in March 2015 (SCMS conference, Montreal, Canada).
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| Expenditure Plan for Carryover Budget |
This coming June 2015, I will be in Liverpool for a conference; but I will also be there to explore the past as Liverpool boasts a Slavery History Trail as well as an International Slavery Museum, which is full of resources about the trade. I have also made contact with the library at the University of Liverpool to explore their extensive Special Collections and Archives.
Another European city, Nantes, in France, has made similar efforts to face its past. Nantes was also a slaving port and its Museum of History offers guided tours of the city's slave trading past. In 2012, Nantes also opened a Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, which is unique in the world. I intend to go to Nantes since the issue of Reparations is central to the closing argument of my book project.
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Research Products
(3 results)
