Panel 35: Trans-Atlantic Approaches to Afro-Hispanic Studies

Very recently, scholars of Afro-Hispanic Studies who are interested in contemporary global connections have turned their attention to connections between Hispanic Africa (Equatorial Guinea, predominantly) and Afro-Spanish America. This turn indicates an effort to understand to what degree and in what ways have Africans and African descendants influenced the role of the Spanish language and culture in the contemporary global political-economic order. The members of this panel have been active participants in this emergent bridging approach which proposes the fostering of a critical and constructive debate about the world order by opening channels to air the perspectives of people systematically excluded (through categories of race and class) in the outlining of today’s globalized world.

Consistently, while attending to aesthetic, historical and geopolitical dimensions, African and Afro-Spanish American writers posit in their literary works questions that focus on today’s economic, social and cultural challenges for Africans and Afro-descendants across the globe. By promoting the examination of literary works produced on both sides of the Atlantic and from different waves of the African Diaspora, this panel seeks to explore questions like the following:
What are the issues indicated by contemporary writers on both sides of the Atlantic in regards to the post Cold War world economic and political order?
To what degree do these writers deconstruct racial, cultural, social and political hierarchies established since colonial times?