Call for Papers: The Red and the Black – The Russian Revolution and the Black Atlantic

Conference to be held at the Institute for Black Atlantic Research (IBAR), University of Central Lancashire, Preston, 14-15 October 2017, to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution.

Keynote speaker: Professor Winston James, University of California, Irvine.

With special performances from Linton Kwesi Johnson (invited) and David Rovics

The Russian Revolution was not only one of the most critical events of the twentieth century in its own right but an inspirational event across the ‘black Atlantic’ as a blow against racism and imperialism.  For colonial subjects of European empires internationally as well as black Americans, the Russian Revolution promised the hope of a world without oppression and exploitation.  This conference aims to build on the growing scholarship and literature in this area to explore the impact the revolutionary events in Russia during 1917 made across the African diaspora and the subsequent critical intellectual influence of Marxism and Bolshevism on the current of revolutionary ‘black internationalism’ in its aftermath. We are interested in thinking about the relationship between the Russian Revolution and the ‘black Atlantic’, so proposals of papers particularly relating to thinking through how the Russian Revolution fits with the category of the black Atlantic – and Atlantic history and Atlantic studies more broadly – would be most welcome.  For the full CfP please see https://theredandtheblack.wordpress.com/

Please send proposals for papers of no more than 250 words by 31 Jan 2017 to any or all of the organisers of this conference:
Alan Rice – Arice@uclan.ac.uk

David Featherstone David.Featherstone@glasgow.ac.uk

Christian Høgsbjerg cjhogsbjerg@hotmail.com

Olga Tabachnikova otabachnikova@uclan.ac.uk