About this Issue
Gisela Fosado
This new issue of The Scholar & Feminist Online, edited by Kim F. Hall
and Christine Cynn, brings together a fantastic and diverse set of work
that contributes to the growing field of Africana Studies (the
multidisciplinary study of Africa and the Black Diaspora) with a focus
on gendered perspectives within this field. Organized by the three
themes of history, politics and the academy, "Rewriting Dispersal:
Africana Gender Studies" draws together a broad range of work from
specialists in fields ranging from politics and activism to the arts and the
academy.
How is gender expressed differently in diasporic contexts? How can we
move to have women, gender and sexuality be integral to a basic
understanding of processes of diaspora instead of ancillary or additive?
These are among the questions that Hall and Cynn ask in the introduction
to the issue, as they explain the dire need for a focus on gender within
Africana Studies, and as they specify the particular contribution that
this issue makes towards that goal. Relatively new programs like
Africana Studies are at an exciting moment of possibility in that their
rethinking of the goals and assumptions of their fields creates a space
to rethink their relationship to gender and to transform notions of
diaspora. New programs, however, particularly those like Africana
Studies that challenge traditional organizations of knowledge, tend to
be the first to suffer attacks on academic freedom, making journal
issues like this one ever more urgent.
This issue of our webjournal was made possible by generous funding
from the Ford Foundation's Difficult Dialogues project and the Virginia
C. Gildersleeve Fund from the Barnard College Provost's Office.
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