Call for Papers: Black Praxis Claude McKay Issue
With the objective of becoming a regularly issued journal of the newly forming Claude McKay Society,Black Praxis currently seeks submissions for an inaugural number devoted to the Jamaican HarlemRenaissance author. Articles may consider new directions in McKay scholarship, including a reassessment of the author’s role in Harlem Renaissance studies, as well as in such areas as black Marxist, black queer, and black nationalist politics and cultures. Explorations of McKay’s role in the New Negro and/or Negritude movements are welcome. Scholarship may consider McKay in terms of transnational locations and intersections. Criticism might therefore consider the significance of McKay’s residences in such Diaspora locations as Kingston, Harlem, Paris, Tangier, and Chicago. A reconsideration of McKay’s role in modernist studies is welcome. For example, analyses of McKay’s interaction with Harlem Renaissance figures, such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain Locke, as well as other interwar notables, including Richard Wright and Louise Thompson, would be appropriate, as would considerations of McKay a propos major black leftist figures like C. L. R. James, Audre Lorde, and Amiri Baraka. Work on the poet’s use of the sonnet and other traditional poetic forms is encouraged, as well, as is an investigation into McKay vis-à-vis black oral/folk cultures, such as his Jamaican “dialect,” or Creole poetry. New reflections on McKay’s use of literary fiction are also invited, as are discussions of his autobiographical, journalistic, and other prose writings.

Portions or chapters of books in process are welcome for consideration (and it is his or her prospective contributor’s responsibility to make any necessary provisions with the book’s publisher respecting the right to publish). Reviews of recent books that discuss McKay, particularly those that reflect on how scholarship on McKay and his work has adjusted to or has counteracted current trends, are invited, as well. The submitting author is responsible for any and all necessary permissions to reprint.

The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2010.

The submitted manuscript should be in the range of 5,000 to 10,000 words. The document must conform to MLA style, with parenthetical references and a works cited page. The manuscript must be double-spaced, with one-inch margins and page numbers, and the author’s name (or authors’ names) should appear on the first page. The title of the document must reflect its content. The manuscript must be submitted as an attachment via e-mail in Microsoft Word format to Black.Praxis@ohio.edu. All other inquiries must also be sent to the above e-mail address or to the following:

The Editor
Black Praxis
Dept. of African American Studies
314 Lindley Hall
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701
black.praxis@ohio.edu