Dialogues across Diasporas: Women Writers, Scholars, and Activists of Africana a

Dialogues Across Diasporas focuses on the shared historical legacies of members of the Africana and Latina diasporas, and the cultural impact of the African diaspora in the Americas. This book seeks to emphasize connections rather than divisions among different migratory ethnic communities via a reconfiguration of borders and ethnic identities. This collection of essays has three major goals: first, to foreground shared themes and strategies in the literary productions of women of Africana and Latina/o descent; second, to highlight the importance of the arts for community activism within shared diasporic spaces; and third, to illustrate the potential of artistic and activist collaborations among women from both groups across disciplinary, political, national, and ethnic divides. Dialogues across Diasporas is divided into three sections. The first section provides a theoretical overview of diasporic migrations, politics, and identities. It argues that diverse diasporas can unite around shared political and cultural experiences such as converting contested spaces into communities and resisting rhetorics of exclusion. The second section demonstrates the diverse ways in which migratory women and daughters of the diaspora frame their histories, lived experiences, and different forms of knowledge via poetry, short stories, academic essays, and other art forms. The third section focuses on women's activism, suggesting opportunities for collaboration among and between diverse diasporic communities.

Author: Marion Rohrleitner
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 02/26/2015
Pages: 302
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.00d
ISBN: 9781498511605
About the Author
Marion Rohrleitner is an assistant professor of English and affiliate faculty in the Women's Studies and African American Studies Programs at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she teaches 20th and 21st century American, Chicana/o and Latina/o, Caribbean, and African diasporic literatures. Her articles, book chapters, and book reviews have appeared in American Quarterly, Antípodas: A Journal of Hispanic and Galician Studies, Callaloo, El Mundo Zurdo, Interdisciplinary Humanities, and Latino Studies. Her first book, Diasporic Bodies: Contemporary Historical Fictions and the Intimate Public Sphere, is a finalist for the ICI manuscript competition at Vanderbilt University. Sarah E. Ryan is an empirical research librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University. She is an M.L.S. candidate at Texas Woman's University, and holds an M.A. in Interpersonal Communication, Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies, and Ph.D. in Rhetorical Criticism from Ohio University. Sarah has published extensively on the topics of good governance and community rebuilding in Rwanda, including a 2012 article in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal entitled "Fulfilling the U.S. obligation to prevent exterminationism: A comprehensive approach to regulating hate speech and dismantling systems of genocide." She has also published in: Contemporary Argumentation & Debate, Journal of Development Communication, Journal of Public Affairs Education, Peace Review, Review of Communication, Women & Language, and in a variety of edited collections and working papers series.