The African Diaspora and the Disciplines [Paperback]

Focusing on the problems and conflicts of doing African diaspora research from various disciplinary perspectives, these essays situate, describe, and reflect on the current practice of diaspora scholarship. Tejumola Olaniyan, James H. Sweet, and the international group of contributors assembled here seek to enlarge understanding of how the diaspora is conceived and explore possibilities for the future of its study. With the aim of initiating interdisciplinary dialogue on the practice of African diaspora studies, they emphasize learning from new perspectives that take advantage of intersections between disciplines. Ultimately, they advocate a fuller sense of what it means to study the African diaspora in a truly global way.

Charts a new course for African diaspora studies

Tejumola Olaniyan is the Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author ofArrest the Music!(IUP, 2004).

James H. Sweet is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author ofRecreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 14411770.

Overall, this collection is a very timely and useful contribution to the slowly emerging body of studies of the African diasporas.

The African Diaspora and the Disciplines is a cutting-edge publication that is long overdue. Apart from general readers, it can be recommended for upper-level African diaspora courses and graduate theory and methods courses. Its discussion of genetic diasporas in particular will serve as a scientific and biological bridge linking New World black diasporic ideation about notions of a homeland and the environs where these homes sprouted prior to the Middle Passage.

The African Diaspora and the Disciplines . . . ranks as an excellent contribution to the growing field [of African diaspora studies]. . . . [I]t is a cogent, suggestive work tl#+