(When) Will the Joy Come?: Black Womxn in the Ivory Tower
Call for Contributors - Now Closed
Call for Contributors - Now Closed
DESCRIPTION:
As an edited collection, this book will be a compilation of chapters written by Black womxn scholars who situate their professional trajectory, often circuitous, within, just aside or outside of institutions of higher education.[1] It will center the emotional and mental violence Black womxn experience. In so doing, it will add to the discussion of Black womxn by focusing on their emotive processes in the aftermath of success when goals (first book, tenure, full professor) are met. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the very recent #BlackinTheIvoryTower Twitter string through which Black scholars have documented and continue to document sexism, microaggressions and overt racism in academic settings, we believe that a book about these struggles is important. This text aims to be an interdisciplinary collection that includes narratives based on personal experiences as well as qualitative and/or quantitative-based studies with an emphasis on the intersection of race, class and gender.
Often, it is assumed that joy, excitement, pride, and relief will follow such achievements, however, we have found in our own personal experiences that this is not always the case. It is common to have a diminished sense of self-worth or to have our professional identity distorted throughout the period that spans from graduate school to accepting visiting or tenure track positions and achieving tenure or full professorship. The questions we want to answer are: What emotions arise when Black womxn, who have suffered a variety of assaults on their intellectual ability, identity, and personhood, but who nevertheless, have achieved success markers defined by the institution? What causes Black womxn to leave higher education, yet maintain a relationship with academia in some way? What are the mindful ways that Black womxn celebrate their successes? We seek chapters that speak to these experiences and answer the proposed questions.
Alternatively, chapters that examine affinity/identity formations on campus, networking through professional associations, mentoring and methods of self-affirmation, therapy, etc., will also be considered. What is key is that chapters examine the emotional state, responses and outcomes that are experienced in the aftermath of sexism, microaggressions, and overt racism experienced in higher education.
(When) Will the Joy Come? will survey a topic not yet fully addressed in scholarship--the emotive processes in the aftermath of success--when sentiments of joy, happiness or relief are not immediately experienced. Considering the grim reality that the academy has not yet achieved a utopia that successfully promotes and executes equality along lines of race, class and gender, this book will explore Black womxn’s emotional and mental state during their careers when goal markers are met.
THEME AREAS:
The Climb up
This section will include personal experiences focused on the transition from graduate school to visiting assistant professorships and tenure-track employment.
The Journey
This section will highlight personal stories that examine the emotional responses to passing pre-tenure review, publishing a first book, and achieving tenure.
Alternative Paths
This section will highlight personal stories that document academic achievements and career trajectories of womxn who choose not to teach full-time, whether it be that they decided to work as administrators within the university or take a professional path where most of their work occurs outside of the academy.
Vision
This section will highlight narratives by tenured professors who have achieved seniority in their institutions and who have developed a critical understanding of how institutional racism and sexism have undermined the achievements of Black womxn. This section will also explore how senior Black womxn have mentored junior Black womxn by underscoring the importance of celebrating professional milestones through affinity formations, networking, etc.
Policy and Practice
This section will survey current institutional contexts that shape the environments wherein Black womxn experience racism and sexism and suggest potential avenues for reform.
DEADLINES & CONTACT:
We are seeking 250 word proposals describing the piece you would like to contribute to this edited collection. The proposal deadline is March 20, 2021. If you would like to contribute, but need an extension, please let us know. Decision notifications will be sent out April 15th. Complete chapters between 5,000-5,500 words will be due June 15th. Please email proposals and bio to chapdelainer@duq.edu. This edited collection is under advance contract with University of Massachusetts Press.
EDITORS:
Dr. Abena Ampofoa Asare is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University. Her research and writing span questions of human rights, citizenship and transformative justice in Africa and the African diaspora. Her work can be found in The Radical Teacher, The International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, African Arguments, and Foreign Policy in Focus, among other places. In 2018- 2019, she was Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her first book Truth Without Reconciliation: A Human Rights History of Ghana was chosen as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2018 by the American Library Association.
Dr. Robin P. Chapdelaine is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender history and African history at Duquesne University. Her research focuses on gender, human trafficking, child labor and human rights. Her book The Persistence of Slavery: An Economic History of Child Trafficking (2021) explores child trafficking, slavery, pawning, and marriages in Nigeria. She has published or has forthcoming articles in African Economic History, the Bulletin of Ecumenical Theology, and the Journal of West African History. She also has published or has forthcoming chapters in Children on the Move in Africa: Past and Present Experiences of Migration (2016), A Cultural History of Slavery and Human Trafficking in the Age of Global Conflict (2021), and Human Trafficking: Global History and Global Perspectives (2021).
Dr. Michelle Dionne Thompson JD, PhD is an historian and teaches at City College of New York in New York City, New York. She teaches survey courses about Caribbean History, and seminars about the African Diaspora and Women in the African Diaspora. She is currently writing her monograph entitled Jamaica’s Accompong Maroons: (1838 – 1905): Retooled Resistance for Continued Existence. She also coaches women in law and academia to reach personal and professional goals sanely. You can find out more at http://michelledionnethompson.com.
[1] We intentionally use the term ‘womxn’ “to include all woman-identifying individuals regardless of sex assigned at birth.” See “Defining Womxn of Color,” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://womxnofworth.web.unc.edu/sample-page-2/, accessed February 2, 2021.
[2] Angela Davis, “Black Women in the Academy,” Callaloo, Vol. 17 No. 2 (Spring 1994), 423.
[3] Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 20.
[4] Sekile M. Nzinga’s Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).
As an edited collection, this book will be a compilation of chapters written by Black womxn scholars who situate their professional trajectory, often circuitous, within, just aside or outside of institutions of higher education.[1] It will center the emotional and mental violence Black womxn experience. In so doing, it will add to the discussion of Black womxn by focusing on their emotive processes in the aftermath of success when goals (first book, tenure, full professor) are met. In light of the Black Lives Matter movement and the very recent #BlackinTheIvoryTower Twitter string through which Black scholars have documented and continue to document sexism, microaggressions and overt racism in academic settings, we believe that a book about these struggles is important. This text aims to be an interdisciplinary collection that includes narratives based on personal experiences as well as qualitative and/or quantitative-based studies with an emphasis on the intersection of race, class and gender.
Often, it is assumed that joy, excitement, pride, and relief will follow such achievements, however, we have found in our own personal experiences that this is not always the case. It is common to have a diminished sense of self-worth or to have our professional identity distorted throughout the period that spans from graduate school to accepting visiting or tenure track positions and achieving tenure or full professorship. The questions we want to answer are: What emotions arise when Black womxn, who have suffered a variety of assaults on their intellectual ability, identity, and personhood, but who nevertheless, have achieved success markers defined by the institution? What causes Black womxn to leave higher education, yet maintain a relationship with academia in some way? What are the mindful ways that Black womxn celebrate their successes? We seek chapters that speak to these experiences and answer the proposed questions.
Alternatively, chapters that examine affinity/identity formations on campus, networking through professional associations, mentoring and methods of self-affirmation, therapy, etc., will also be considered. What is key is that chapters examine the emotional state, responses and outcomes that are experienced in the aftermath of sexism, microaggressions, and overt racism experienced in higher education.
(When) Will the Joy Come? will survey a topic not yet fully addressed in scholarship--the emotive processes in the aftermath of success--when sentiments of joy, happiness or relief are not immediately experienced. Considering the grim reality that the academy has not yet achieved a utopia that successfully promotes and executes equality along lines of race, class and gender, this book will explore Black womxn’s emotional and mental state during their careers when goal markers are met.
THEME AREAS:
The Climb up
This section will include personal experiences focused on the transition from graduate school to visiting assistant professorships and tenure-track employment.
The Journey
This section will highlight personal stories that examine the emotional responses to passing pre-tenure review, publishing a first book, and achieving tenure.
Alternative Paths
This section will highlight personal stories that document academic achievements and career trajectories of womxn who choose not to teach full-time, whether it be that they decided to work as administrators within the university or take a professional path where most of their work occurs outside of the academy.
Vision
This section will highlight narratives by tenured professors who have achieved seniority in their institutions and who have developed a critical understanding of how institutional racism and sexism have undermined the achievements of Black womxn. This section will also explore how senior Black womxn have mentored junior Black womxn by underscoring the importance of celebrating professional milestones through affinity formations, networking, etc.
Policy and Practice
This section will survey current institutional contexts that shape the environments wherein Black womxn experience racism and sexism and suggest potential avenues for reform.
DEADLINES & CONTACT:
We are seeking 250 word proposals describing the piece you would like to contribute to this edited collection. The proposal deadline is March 20, 2021. If you would like to contribute, but need an extension, please let us know. Decision notifications will be sent out April 15th. Complete chapters between 5,000-5,500 words will be due June 15th. Please email proposals and bio to chapdelainer@duq.edu. This edited collection is under advance contract with University of Massachusetts Press.
EDITORS:
Dr. Abena Ampofoa Asare is Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University. Her research and writing span questions of human rights, citizenship and transformative justice in Africa and the African diaspora. Her work can be found in The Radical Teacher, The International Journal of Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, African Arguments, and Foreign Policy in Focus, among other places. In 2018- 2019, she was Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Her first book Truth Without Reconciliation: A Human Rights History of Ghana was chosen as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2018 by the American Library Association.
Dr. Robin P. Chapdelaine is an Assistant Professor of Women’s and Gender history and African history at Duquesne University. Her research focuses on gender, human trafficking, child labor and human rights. Her book The Persistence of Slavery: An Economic History of Child Trafficking (2021) explores child trafficking, slavery, pawning, and marriages in Nigeria. She has published or has forthcoming articles in African Economic History, the Bulletin of Ecumenical Theology, and the Journal of West African History. She also has published or has forthcoming chapters in Children on the Move in Africa: Past and Present Experiences of Migration (2016), A Cultural History of Slavery and Human Trafficking in the Age of Global Conflict (2021), and Human Trafficking: Global History and Global Perspectives (2021).
Dr. Michelle Dionne Thompson JD, PhD is an historian and teaches at City College of New York in New York City, New York. She teaches survey courses about Caribbean History, and seminars about the African Diaspora and Women in the African Diaspora. She is currently writing her monograph entitled Jamaica’s Accompong Maroons: (1838 – 1905): Retooled Resistance for Continued Existence. She also coaches women in law and academia to reach personal and professional goals sanely. You can find out more at http://michelledionnethompson.com.
[1] We intentionally use the term ‘womxn’ “to include all woman-identifying individuals regardless of sex assigned at birth.” See “Defining Womxn of Color,” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://womxnofworth.web.unc.edu/sample-page-2/, accessed February 2, 2021.
[2] Angela Davis, “Black Women in the Academy,” Callaloo, Vol. 17 No. 2 (Spring 1994), 423.
[3] Deborah Gray White, Telling Histories: Black Women Historians in the Ivory Tower (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 20.
[4] Sekile M. Nzinga’s Lean Semesters: How Higher Education Reproduces Inequity (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).