France Noire – Black France:
The Poetics and Politics of Blackness
June 6-7, 2008 - Paris, France
http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/

In Memoriam: Aimé Césaire, Michel Fabre, and Ousmane Sembène

Conveners:
Tyler Stovall, Trica Danielle Keaton, Marcus Bruce

Keynote Address:
Friday, June 6, 2008 - 17h00 –18h00
Madame Christiane Taubira
Member of Parliament
Députée de Guyane

Introduction by Fred Constant
Professor of Political Science, Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
(France) and
French Minister of Foreign Affairs

Opening Remarks by Tyler Stovall
Dean and Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

Closing Tribute to Aimé Césaire by Abiola Irele
Professor of African and Afro-American Studies and Romance Languages and
Literatures at Harvard University
http://www.theroot.com/id/45959

Conference Location:
Columbia University Institute for Scholars
Reid Hall
4 rue de Chevreuse
75006 Paris
Metro: Montparnasse
For more information, please contact the conveners:
tstovall@berkeley.edu; tkeaton@umn.edu; mbruce@bates.edu

Colloquium Mission
The last few years have seen an extraordinary flowering of Black
consciousness in France. Individuals and collectives have organized
around questions pertaining to the memory of slavery, “race” and
anti-black racism, the Black condition, and what it generally means to
be Black in contemporary French society. At the same time, there has
been a new wave of scholarship on Blacks in Europe and a (re)theorizing
of “blackness” in the African diaspora relative to European society and
history. Paris, in particular, has always been a center of Black life
worldwide, from the Négritude movement of the past to the myriad
formations of Black empowerment specific to this moment. On June 6 and
7, 2008, a gathering of leading international scholars will meet in
Paris to examine what we identify here as "Black France," that is, the
Black presence and condition in French society. Madame Christiane
Taubira, the esteemed member of the French Parliament whose very name is
now synonymous with legislation that recognizes slavery and the slave
trade as crimes against humanity—The Taubira Law—will deliver the
keynote address as the prelude to an exciting and stimulating series of
discussions. We encourage all those interested in the African diaspora
and French society to join us for what will be an historic event.

Colloquium Schedule – June 6-7, 2008

Friday, June 6, 2008
9h00 – 9h25
Opening Remarks
Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley

Session I - Theme: Black Ontology in Formation
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
9h30 – 10h30
Hortense Spillers – Vanderbilt University
"The Idea of Black Culture"

Elisabeth Boyi – Stanford University
“Identité problématique et identitification productive”

Allison Blakely – Boston University
"Black Identity in France in a European Perspective"

10h30-10h40
Pause

10h40-11h40
Michelle Wright – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
“Reconsidering Paris: The Physics of Blackness in the Postwar Era”

Arlette Frund – Université François Rabelais, Tours
“Site-ing Black France: discourses and the making of identities"

Brent Edwards – Columbia University
“The Unheard Voice of Black Paris”

Chair: Trica Danielle Keaton – University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black France: Presence, Protest, and Prosperity
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
13h30-14h30
Abiola Irele – Harvard University
"Black France in the Thirties"

Jennifer Boittin- Pennsylvania State University
"The Militant Black Men of Marseille and Paris during the Interwar Years"

Gary Wilder - Pomona College
"Federalism as the Future Past of Black France: Revisiting Senghor's Postwar
Vision"

14h30-14h40
Pause

14h40-15h40
Marcus Bruce – Bates University
"The New Negro in Paris: Booker T. Washington, The Paris Exposition of
1900, and The American Negro Exhibit"

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting- Vanderbilt University
“Bricktop's Paris: African American Women Expatriates in the Jazz Age”

Bennetta Jules-Rosette – University of California, San Diego
"Reflections on the Future of Black Paris: Hues of the Rainbow in a
Global Village"

Chair: Denis-Constant Martin - Senior Research Fellow, CEAN-Sciences Po
Bordeaux-FNSP

17h00 –18h00
Keynote Address
Christiane Taubira

18h30-19h30
Opening Reception

Saturday, June 7, 2008
Session I - Theme: The Social Significance of Race, Racialization, and
Racism
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
10h00-11h00
Mamadou Diouf – Columbia University
TBA

Eric Fassin – Ecole Normale Supérieure
“France in Black and White? The Emergence of Racial Categories in the
Color-Blind Republic"

Tyler Stovall – University of California, Berkeley
“No Green Pastures: The ‘African Americanization’ of France”

11h00-11h10
Pause

11h10-12h10
Jean-Paul Rocchi - Université de Paris VII
"Frantz Fanon, the Masquerade of (Anti) Racism, and the Discipline of
Jouissance - A Reading of Conservatism"

Patrick Lozès – Conseil Repréntatif des Associations Noires (le CRAN)
TBA

Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga - Centre d'études africaines- EHESS
TBA

Chair: Ramon Grosfoguel - University of California, Berkeley

Lunch

Session II - Theme: Black Exclusion - Black Belonging: Contemporary
Questions and Dilemmas
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
14h00-15h00
Fred Constant - Université des Antilles et de la Guyane
“Black France and the debate over 'discriminations positives”

Dominic Thomas – University of California, Los Angeles
“BLACK FRANCE: Immigration and National Identity”

Michel Giraud - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
“Memory of Slavery among the French Antilleans: Silence or Amnesia”

15h00-15h10
Pause

15h10-15h50
Veronique Helenon - Florida International University
“Poetics of Hip Hop”

Fatimata Wane-Sagna - Journaliste à France 24 Chaîne d'actualité
internationale
" La question noire dans les médias en France depuis les émeutes en
banlieue de 2005"

Chair: James Cohen - Université de Paris VII

Session III - Theme: Black France: The Writers’ Landscape
Questions & Answers at Conclusion of Session
16h30-17h30
Daniel Maximin: Award-Winning Novelist, Poet, and Essayist
TBA

Barbara-Chase Riboud: Award-Winning Novelist and Artist

Alain Mabanckou : Award-Winning Novelist, Professor- The University of
California-Los Angeles (UCLA)

17h30-17h40
Pause

17h40-18h20
Jake Lamar: Award-Winning Novelist

Simon Njami: Award-Wining Novelist, Art Critic, and Curator

Chair: Geneviève Fabre - Université de Paris VII, Director of the Center
of African American Research.

19h00-20h30 – Closing Remarks and Reception
Abiola Irele – Harvard University


A Colloquium Sponsored by
-The Ford Foundation;
-African American and Diaspora Studies; The Center for Ethics, and The
Robert Penn Warren
-Center for the Humanities "Black Europe" Seminar at Vanderbilt University;
-The Office of the Senior Vice The President for System Academic
Administration and the Office of the Vice President and Vice Provost for
Equity and Diversity at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities;
-Office of the Dean of Faculty at Bates College