Call for Papers "On Our Own Terms: African Feminist Epistemologies in a Transnational Frame" Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy
"We will continue to define ourselves and our concerns on our own terms", thus concludes Oyeronke Oyewumis thought provoking introduction to her recently edited volume, African Women and Feminism (2003). The assertion underscores one of the most enduring predicaments of African feminist epistemologies: the inevitable alterity of dominant Western knowledge formations and their compulsive will to universality. Although the detotalizations and despatializations of postmodernism, coupled with the postcolonials privileging of cultural pluralism, intermeshings, and contingencies, have unsettled the bases of cultural/epistemological authenticity, Oyewumis phrase "on our own terms" suggests that epistemological authenticity remains an atavism, easily invoked as resistant praxis in the face of misrepresentation, appropriation and/or occlusion by dominant, foreign knowledge systems. Although African feminist knowledge systems, such as Obioma Nnaemekas "negofeminism" and Molara Ogundipes "stiwanism", emerged out of the necessity of addressing African female subjecthood and agency in the context of transnational pressures and mediations, the persistence of authenticist inclinations, even in the face of cyber-powered and media-induced immediacy of global contact zones, necessitates a renewed inquiry into the meaning, nature, modalities, possibilities, and even, desirability, of an African feminist epistemology, fashioned "on its own terms" in an unavoidably transnationalist context. To this end, the Holland-based "Quest: An African Journal of Philosophy", seeks theoretically grounded and cross-disciplinary submissions for its Fall 2005 special issue on African feminisms. Essays of between 6000 8000 words (MLA style) could address any of the following necessarily inexhaustive areas: * African feminist epistemology as travelling theory modalities, politics of insertion, and terms of deployment in Western academe; * African feminism on its own terms meaning, problems, prospects; * The space of African feminisms in Third World feminist discourses in relation to Asian (especially Indian) and Africana feminisms; * African feminisms and the competition for space with imported Western theories in African Universities. Submissions should reach the guest co-editors by May 31, 2005. Co-editors: Pius Adesanmi Department of Comparative Literature The Pennsylvania State University, USA Email: [email protected] Sanya Osha Centre for Civil Society The University of Natal, Durban, South Africa Email: [email protected] ********************************** ********************************** Pius Adesanmi, Ph.D Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature The Pennsylvania State University 311 Burrowes Building University Park, PA 16802 USA 814 863 4933 (office) _________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org/ Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://agd.polylog.org/cal/
