Black Sovereignty: Narrative Continuities Across the South Atlantic

Session Submission Type: Panel

Description for Program

We find ideas of Black sovereignty from colonial festivals to contemporary fiction. This panel brings together three scholars who have reflected on the cultural manifestations of this idea in different historical moments. In his paper, Miguel A. Valerio discusses the tradition of festive Black kings and queens in the Black Atlantic. In her presentation, Anna More examines the leader Njinga’s performance of gender and sovereign power in late seventeenth-century Angola. Lanie Millar closes the panel with an analysis of the ideas of Black sovereignty in contemporary fiction that links Brazilian and Angolan movements for Black liberation. Together, the presenters will discuss and engage attendees on the question of the persistence and meaning of this idea in Black thought and imaginaries.

Sub Unit

• ASWAD

Chair

• Miguel Valerio, University of Maryland, College Park

Individual Presentations

• “‘With Their King and Queen’: Performing Black Sovereignty in Colonial Latin America” - Miguel Valerio, University of Maryland, College Park

• Njinga Mbande: Gender and Fugitive Sovereignty in Seventeenth-Century Angola - Anna More, Universidade de Brasília

• Black Liberation Networks between Brazil and Angola in Contemporary Fiction” - Lanie Millar, University of Oregon

• Reading Genealogies of Sovereignty through a Mande Epic: A Methodological Intervention - Mariah Bender, Rice University