Who, what, when, and where is Black France, and what is the current state of Black French Studies across geographies? Recent decades have seen an extraordinary growth and recognition of this academic field in the United States, but how has this formation been apprehended, resisted, and practiced beyond those shores? What is the state of Black French Studies, particularly in continental France where an idealized universalism is in constant tension with lived experiences and evidence-based analyses of race, Black life, blackness, and antiblackness?

At this critical inflection point in the growth and evolution of a field that defies boundaries, this three-day conference (Oct. 3–5) seeks to explore these questions from a variety of perspectives. Indeed, Black French Studies encompasses a wealth of material and spans diverse periods and territories, ranging from pre-Atlantic life and black enslavement through the era of the Haitian revolution and its afterlife to present-day social justice mobilizations that refuse the enduring legacies and violence of coloniality.

Free; register here.

THURSDAY, October 3rd, McMullen Museum of Art

9:40-10:00 am: Opening welcome from conference organizers  

10:00-11:20 am: PANEL 1: Unexpected Geographies of Empire       

• Catherine Boyle, Middlebury College

“Gendered Racialization and Slavery in the Archives of 19-Century Ottoman Tunis”

• Hilary Jones, University of Kentucky

“French Caribbeans in West Africa: Identity, Geo-Spatial Mobility and the Politics of Race in French Empire”

• Kathleen Keller, Gustavus Adolphus College

“Black, French, and Living in Occupied France”

• Caroline Sequin, Lafayette College

“Petitioning for French Residency and Citizenship through Marriage: The Case for/against Interracial Couples in the First Half of the Twentieth Century”

• Liz Foster, Tufts University, Facilitator

11:30am-12:50pm: PANEL 2: Activism as Theory and Praxis

• Ary Gordien, CNRS, Paris

“The Making of French Black LGBTQ Activism (Paris and Marseille)”

• Edwin Hill, University of Southern California

“On Acoustic Jurisprudence and Racial Justice in France”

• Fania Noel, Center for Place, Culture and Politics, The Graduate Center, CUNY

“Thickening Blackness by Becoming a Class-for-itself: On Black Leftist Organization in Contemporary France”

• Raphaëlle Rabanes, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de la Guadeloupe 

“Se réparer et les réparations : Réflexions depuis la Guadeloupe”

• Audrey Celestine, New York University, Facilitator

1:00-2:15 pm: LUNCH

2:30-3:30 pm: PANEL 3: Ecologies of Justice and Restitution  

• Isabel Bradley, New York University

“Climate Coloniality and Caribbean Survivance: Black French Perspectives on Plantationocene/Plantationocène”

• Eirann Cohen, New York University

• Rachel Kirk, Louisiana State University

“Ecologies Entrelacées: Approaching Gender and Critical Ecology in the Francophone Caribbean through the Digital Humanities”

• Facilitator, to be confirmed

3:45-4:45 pm: Optional MOVIE SCREENING or Museum tour of States of Becoming, McMullen Museum of Art  

5:00-6:30 pm: Keynote Address by Mame-Fatou Niang, Carnegie Mellon University

6:30-7:00 pm Student Ensemble Performance as prelude to reception

7:00-8:30 pm: Reception 

View full three-day program here>