African Diaspora and the Disciplines

Focusing on the problems and conflicts of doing African diaspora research from various disciplinary perspectives, these essays situate, describe, and reflect on the current practice of diaspora scholarship. Tejumola Olaniyan, James H. Sweet, and the international group of contributors assembled here seek to enlarge understanding of how the diaspora is conceived and explore possibilities for the future of its study. With the aim of initiating interdisciplinary dialogue on the practice of African diaspora studies, they emphasize learning from new perspectives that take advantage of intersections between disciplines. Ultimately, they advocate a fuller sense of what it means to study the African diaspora in a truly global way.

Overall, this collection is a very timely and useful contribution to the slowly emerging body of studies of the African diasporas., The African Diaspora and the Disciplines is a cutting-edge publication that is long overdue. Apart from general readers, it can be recommended for upper-level African diaspora courses and graduate theory and methods courses. Its discussion of genetic diasporas in particular will serve as a scientific and biological bridge linking New World black diasporic ideation about notions of a "homeland" and the environs where these homes sprouted prior to the Middle Passage., The African Diaspora and the Disciplines . . . ranks as an excellent contribution to the growing field [of African diaspora studies]. . . . [I]t is a cogent, suggestive work that will energize scholars across the disciplines to further mine this rich vein., The volume as a whole reflects a courageous effort: it goes beyond empirical specifics of the African diaspora to provide an interim report on intellectual work crossing the boundaries of national units and disciplinary boxes. Vol. 52.2, 2011

Tejumola Olaniyan is the Louise Durham Mead Professor of English and African Languages and Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of Arrest the Music! (IUP, 2004).James H. Sweet is Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is author of Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770.