2024 Call for Proposals
HOMEPLACE: A SITE OF RESISTANCE
Conference Dates: February 29-March 01, 2024 (in-person/hybrid)
This year’s conference, named in honor of bell hooks' captivating essay, "Homeplace: A Site of Resistance," invites participants to explore how they are cultivating nurturing, and affirming safe spaces and groups as a collective form of resistance, transformation, and reclamation. Black resistance emphasizes thriving in spaces that were never built with us in mind, such as higher education. We challenge you to take up space, honoring our authenticity, histories, intersecting identities, and shared joys.
Points of consideration:
How have we/you cultivated Homeplace within yourself, making your mind, body, spirit, and soul a safe, loving place for healing and transformation?
How have we/you cultivated Homeplace with others as a collective site of resistance?
How have we/you cultivated belonging within an authentic affinity community in an unfamiliar or historically exclusive area/location, discipline/area of study, and/or career path?
Proposal Submissions
The conference welcomes proposal submissions to present at this year’s Pan African Conference. All presentation topics should focus on this year’s theme, “Homeplace: A Site of Resistance” and align with one or more of the program tracks. We are interested in a diverse array of perspectives and presenters who have varying levels of expertise, experience, nationalities, organization types, and institutional structures. The goal of the Pan African Conference is to build student leadership and to provide an opportunity for academic scholars, students, professionals, and community members to discuss the issues that affect descendants of Africa on a local, national, and international level.
Deadline
The deadline to submit a proposal for consideration is 11:59 p.m. CST on Friday, January 12, 2024.
Proposal Eligibility
The conference workshops committee welcomes proposals from faculty, administrators, staff, graduate students, undergraduate students, and community members who possess experience and/or expertise in at least one of the program track areas and support the conference theme.
Conference Program Tracks
Academic Track
- “Homeplace Within Higher Education & Leadership”: Centering bell hooks' essay, Homeplace, submissions should focus on cultivating Homeplace in academic disciplines, professional entities, and/or academic leadership. Presentations in this track can include but are not limited to; authentically engaging with BLACK students to establish inclusion and belonging in and beyond the classroom; examining and interrogating curricula to include the contributions of members of the African-Diaspora, to include Afro-Centric ways of knowing; anti-black racism in higher education; anti-racist pedagogy; and fostering connection in the workplace and/or learning environment. Submissions to this track can also address new trends or developments in higher education.
Topical Track
- “Cultivating Homeplace Collectively”: Centering bell hooks' essay, Homeplace, submissions should focus major themes, concepts, and/or key topic areas of the essay, to include but not limited to: significance of affinity groups/spaces; black women/women of color; safety; acceptance; freedom; hope; legacy; connectedness; sense of family/community.
