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Call for Papers and Copy Editors

Call for Papers for Special Issue 

THE CONTINUATION OF THE REVOLUTIONARY AFRICAN WOMAN

The Special Issue

This Siyabonana special issue examines global African women’s rich repertoire of storytelling strategies. In doing so, we ask the questions: Who tells the story of global African women? How are these stories received and understood? Who has ownership over global African women’s narratives? We do this by centering global African (African and African Diaspora) women and communication - what they say; how they say it; what they don’t say; or what is spoken without words. We are therefore concerned with African women’s epistemologies,  with a focus on community, literature, and storytelling. As one example, the ways global African women writers use language as a means of expression, revolution, and maintaining culture allows for deeper understanding about how she depicts, challenges, and reconstructs oppressive systems and social structures imposed by colonization and imperialism. Beyond language, topics of importance include: cultural preservation; creating  ways of producing and disseminating knowledge; ways of leading and contributing to family and community (e.g. sisterhood, motherhood, womanhood); and redefining what constitutes education and learning beyond institutions. Global African women writers understand and thus represent the complexity of mitigating colonial structures while encouraging cultural adaptations and modern innovation. Global African women of the 20th century have done this in literature as pioneers in the field, using literature as a vehicle to express transformative methods to knowledge production and  storytelling, which represent the lived experiences of African women. This special issue considers their work and its continuation into how we, and 21st century global African women writers, continue this tradition. 

We argue that global African women’s ability to tell stories beyond these borders makes the stories more accessible to their communities. From this special issue, we hope to use our scholarship and engagement in our communities to support younger scholars, advocate for self-determination and confidence to cite self and other global African women writers. We hope that this special edition will inspire others to join as we consider other opportunities to collaborate, share our work, mentor the youth, and continue the legacy of global African women telling stories and building community (e.g. conferences, book series, workshops, podcast/interview series, open sources journals that promote writing by/about global African women).

Topics can include, but are not limited to the following: 

  • Global African women’s literary voices (e.g. how they voice their opinions, how they actively engage with their realities and surroundings);

  • The reframing of global African language and cultures in literature;

  • The creation of global African women’s epistemologies that are organic to African realities and corrective of misrepresentations;

  • Analysis of global African women’s literature in the 20th century and/or how it impacts 21st century global African women’s literature;

  • Global African women’s storytelling (e.g. how she follows the tradition of past women storytellers, how she reframes storytelling in the present);

  • The current/potential impact of global African women’s storytelling on the lives of African peoples;

  • Methods and theories of analyzing global African women’s literature coming from African women; 

  • Lived experiences or stories of global African women’s use of her epistemology through knowledge creation and innovations that benefit her family/community; and

  • Ways global African women disrupt colonization and imperialism by challenging and dismantling oppressive systems and social structures.

We invite submissions of varying forms and genres that showcase global African women (Africa and the African Diaspora). We encourage longer essays and research articles, as well as oral histories, institutional reports, book reviews, commentaries, personal testimonies, short stories, or a collection of poetry (3-5 poems). Essays, research articles, reports, and oral histories/interviews should not exceed 10,000 words; review essays, film reviews, and commentaries should not exceed 3,000 words; and book reviews should not exceed 1500 words. The length and medium of all creative work will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

 

Special Issue Editors

​​

Dr. Ọlaọcha Nwadiuto Nwabara is a storyteller who uses writing and orality as a medium to represent the narratives of African peoples, cultures, histories, identities, and ways of knowing. Grounded in Black Studies, African Studies and African Diaspora Studies, Dr. Nwabara is an assistant professor of West African Literature and Cultures at the State University of New York at Geneseo. Her research, similar to her art, focuses on celebrating and elevating the stories of African descendent people, and thinking about how they represent their communities’ identities through their cultural productions (literature, film, music). Current scholarly and creative writing projects examine global Africa while focusing on Nigerian transnational identities, or the way Nigerians in the world carry their cultures where they go, and how they understand their transforming racial, ethnic, gender and sexual-based lived identities in new worlds. Her most recent publication models this: “Becoming, Writing Home: The Journey Towards Self for Community in Under the Udala Trees and the Binti trilogy.” Ultimately, Dr. Nwabara’s passion is to encourage conversations leading to self-love by embodying knowledge of self and community in order to empower self-definition and self-determination.

 

Dr. Korka Sall is the academic director of The Minnesota Studies in International Development, MSID-Senegal. She came back to Senegal after teaching and conducting research at different universities including UMass Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, and Harvard University for nine years.  Dr. Sall holds an MA and a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (May 2021) and her research interests include Caribbean Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Studies, and African Diaspora Studies. Her dissertation, “Negritude Feminisms: Francophone Black Women Writers and activists in France, Martinique and Senegal from the 1920s to the 1980s. Her scholarship focuses on Post-Colonial Studies, languages and cultures; Black Studies; and gender and development. She co-published an article on Blackness and Pan-African political consciousness, available here. Sall is a passionate scholar and activist invested in promoting the contributions of African Women in Negritude, the Harlem Renaissance, Feminisms, Pan-Africanism, and other liberatory movements. She is one of the coordinators of the African Women’s Millennium Initiative on Poverty and Human Rights (AWOMI), which focuses on women and gender development.

Feel free to contact the special issue editors for further inquiries and questions:

Dr. Olaocha Nwabara onwabara@geneseo.edu
Dr. Korka Sall korkasall974@gmail.com 

Submission Guidelines

For this special issue, the editors are asking for authors to submit a 250- 300 word abstract for initial consideration before submitting a longer work. The abstract should include the tentative title, author(s), affiliation(s), type of submission, detailed summary of the proposed submission, and representative sources. Abstracts are due no later than May 31, 2025 and decisions on acceptance will occur no later than June 30, 2025. The selection criteria will involve: relevance to theme, clarity of paper, intellectual significance, and originality.

Once abstracts are accepted by the editors, completed submissions are due no later than September 30, 2025, and should adhere to the guidelines stated above including a title page with title of submission and type of submission (research article, interview etc.), name of author(s), affiliation(s), and email(s).

Manuscripts should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, double spaced, written in Times New Roman, size 12 font, and adhere to the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, APA Publication Manual, or MLA Handbook in terms of format and citation. The final paper submission should not exceed 25 pages via MS word. 

Submission Timeline:

Abstracts Due: May 31, 2025 

Notification of Acceptance: June 30, 2025

Completed Submissions Due: September 30, 2025

Publication:  February/March (Winter 2026)

All abstracts and submissions should be uploaded to the submissions page on the  journal website at  https://www.journalofafricanastudies.com/submissions.

For inquiries directly to the journal, please contact us at https://www.journalofafricanastudies.com/contact.

African-Centered Psychology

Open Call for Special Editions

Open Call for Special Editions

The Journal of Africana Studies intentionally positions itself as an inclusive and affirming discipline-based African-centered entity. Pan-African in scope, it simultaneously provides intellectual space for discourse about community social justice activist work and liberation struggles on the continent and within African world communities. Timely and radical intellectual research and creative pieces on the prison industrial complex; Africana/Black digital humanities; Africana genders and sexualities and Africana queer theory; the Black radical tradition; political prisoners; Africana/Black Psychology; mental health, nutrition, and holistic health; the African/Black Aesthetic; Africana spiritual philosophy; Black liberation theology; and Afrofuturism and Afropessimism are, therefore, welcome. 

 

If scholars, independent authors, writers, activists, and artists would like to edit a special edition that reflects the aim and scope of the journal, please submit a 500-word abstract summarizing the purpose of the special edition, including the tentative title, guest editor(s) of the proposed special edition, affiliation(s), and email(s) of the guest editor(s).

 

All abstracts should be uploaded in the Submissions form here.

General Submission Guidelines

General Submission Guidelines

General Submission Guidelines

Siyabonana encourages longer essays and research articles, as well as oral histories, institutional reports, book reviews, commentaries, and creative works. Essays, research articles, reports, and oral histories/interviews should not exceed 10,000 words; review essays, film reviews, and commentaries should not exceed 3,000 words; and book reviews should not exceed 1700 words. The length of all creative work will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Manuscripts should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, double spaced, written in Times New Roman, size 12 font, and adhere to the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, APA Publication Manual, or MLA Handbook in terms of format and citation.

At the top of your submission, please include the following information in this order:

  1. Title of article (in Bold)

  2. Author’s first name and last name, highest degree (ex.  Kwame Martin, Ph.D.)

  3. Email address

  4. Academic title (ex. Associate Professor of Sociology)

  5. Department (ex. Department of Sociology and Social Work)

  6. University (ex. University of Cape Coast)

    • Repeat for all authors

  7. Abstract

    • Include a 150-200 word abstract under the heading Abstract.

  8. Keywords

    • Include 3 to 5 keywords that best reflect the content of the manuscript under the heading Keywords

 

Peer Review Process:

The journal has a double-blind peer review process. For all submissions, other than book reviews, the author’s name will be removed from the submission during the review process, and the author will not be informed about who reviewed their submission. We will attempt to have at least two reviewers from the editorial board and/or volunteer external reviewers comment on the academic quality of the submission, and submit a review report to the author.

​Publication Timeline:

Siyabonana: The Journal of Africana Studies will publish an issue every winter, summer and fall. 

Call for Copy Editors

Siyabonana: The Journal of Africana Studies is an open access online peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes original research and creative intellectual work on key issues within the discipline of Africana Studies and across the global African world. We are currently in need of several service-oriented scholars, writers, and editors who can serve as copy editors.

Copy Editor's Role

As part of the final stages of the publishing process, copy editors will review and correct punctuation, spelling, and small grammar errors on select submissions. Copy editors will also review and correct citations to ensure that submissions have consistent and accurate formatting in accordance with either MLA, APA, or Chicago citation style.

Contact

If interested in serving as a copy editor, please email joafst@gmail.com.

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Siyabonana: Journal of Africana Studies
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