This proposed panel seeks to present new and challenging perspectives on the history of the slave narrative genre. Recent studies have sought to recontextualize and/or reconsider the generic contours of the Anglo-American slave narrative. For example, Daphne Brooks has suggested the development of a “sonic slave narrative”; Nicole Aljoe and Ian Finseth have drawn attention to the “journeys” of the form in the early Americas; Deborah Jenson has highlighted popular sources from the Haitian Revolutionary period; John MacKay has written comparatively about the autobiographical writings of American slaves and Russian serfs.
Taking its cue from these and other developments in the field, paper proposals might reconsider the slave narrative tradition from the standpoint of multilingualism (e.g. Omar ibn Said), transnationalism (e.g. Juan Francisco Manzano or Mohammah Baquaqua), periodization or chronology (e.g. postbellum narratives), canonicity (e.g. obscure or understudied texts), and various other critical perspectives.
Please submit an abstract (300-500 words) and short CV to ntrinehart@gmail.com by August 15, 2015.
The biennial C19 conference will take place March 17-20, 2016 at Penn State University, For more information on the conference theme of “Unsettling,” visit: http://www.c19conference.org/