Fwd: cfp, Black Historical Geographies — special issue Journal of Historical Geography
Je me permets de vous transmettre ci-dessous un appel à contributions pour un numéro spécial du Journal of Historical Geography : « Black Historical Geographies: Querying the Archive » (numéro dirigé par Mona Domosh, Dartmouth College, et Caroline Bressey, University College London). La date limite d’envoi des abstracts est le 30 avril 2026.
Bien à vous, Delphine Froment
Delphine Froment [ https://crulh.univ-lorraine.fr/membres/froment-delphine | https://crulh.univ-lorraine.fr/membres/froment-delphine ] Maîtresse de conférences | Senior Lecturer Histoire contemporaine | Modern History Université de Lorraine – Nancy – CRULH (EA3945) Membre du editorial board du Journal of Historical Geography
Please see below our call for papers for a special issue of Journal of Historical Geography, “Black Historical Geographies: Querying the Archive”
Black Historical Geographies: Querying the Archive
In his 1925 essay, ‘The Negro Digs up his Past’, Arthur Schomburg argued for the importance of archive building for Black Histories, and the importance of such histories in the critical interrogation of national histories, of the importance of what could be found in ‘neglected and rust-spotted pages’ for community formations, and for the ‘spiritual nourishment’ that knowledge of a cultural past can bring. Schomburg’s essay has a broad geographical imagination. He called for the digging of Black pasts (pasts of ‘The Negro’, the ‘Black’, ‘the African’ and ‘the colored’ folk) to be undertaken in the Americas, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the span of its colonies, in the rust-spotted pages of neglected texts in public libraries, the memoirs of the formerly enslaved, the declarations of resistance in uprisings, in music, in art, in Spanish, French and Latin, in the skill and beauty of African crafts.
A century on from Schomburg’s essay, this call for papers seeks to gather together a collection reflecting upon historical geographies and Black archives (however defined), in order to mark a moment in Black History making, to consider how historical geography and geographers more broadly have paid attention, or not, to the epistemological work that has been undertaken by scholars using, rethinking, making, and remaking Black archives, and to reflect on how that epistemological work can inform historically-minded geography.
We invite expressions of interest to contribute to the collection that reflect both the methodological and empirical richness of Black historical geographies. Topics may include (but are not limited to):
* questioning what constitutes a Black archive; * alternatives to traditional archives; * the politics of creating Black archives & the politics of Blackness in archives; * archives under threat (loss, vulnerable digital archives, EDI attacks; re-closure of previously open archives); * the challenges of translation; * what the Black archive teaches us about history and historical geography; * the move from rust-spotted pages now cleaned up for digital databases; * reflections on writing (or other research) practice; * histories still to be surfaced within the discipline.
And essays may take many forms, including:
* conversations between colleagues; * photo essays that draw on and in the materiality of the archive; * creative responses to archives and/or the lack thereof.
Please submit your abstract by 30 April, 2026 , to [ mailto:domosh@dartmouth.edu | domosh@dartmouth.edu ] and [ mailto:c.bressey@ucl.ac.uk | c.bressey@ucl.ac.uk ] .
Deadline for final paper submission is September 30, 2026
************************************* Mona Domosh Professor of Geography The Joan P. and Edward J. Foley Jr. 1933 Professor
Dartmouth College
New Article: The Defiant Geographies of Bronzeville’s Policy [ https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JZ4AY7YEQDS3ISFE7EFV/full?target=10.1080/24694452.2025.2569514 | https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JZ4AY7YEQDS3ISFE7EFV/full?target=10.1080/24694452.2025.2569514 ]
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” — Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” 1883
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