Submission deadline: September 30, 2026
Event: Doing African Literary and Cultural Studies: Archival Knowledge, Contemporary Relevance and Future Possibilities
Event dates: November 26, 2026
In 2027, MATATU: Journal for African Literary and Cultural Studies will turn forty. To mark this anniversary, the Editors-in-Chief of Matatu will host an online symposium on 26 November 2026 dedicated to the past, present, and future of African Literary and Cultural Studies. The symposium, sponsored by Matatu’s publisher, Brill, will bring together experienced and emerging scholars in the field from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, North America, and other parts of the world to engage in spirited (and, if necessary, also controversial) debates on past lineages that have shaped the study of African Literatures and Cultures and other possibilities that are likely to define them in the future. At a time when the Humanities in general and Literary and Cultural Studies in particular are under attack worldwide, this symposium will provide an opportunity to bring the rich archive of African letters into conversation with pressing contemporary issues and to reaffirm the spirit of scholarly collaboration within Africa and across continents that Matatu has championed during the last four decades.
The editors invite both scholars who have published in Matatu in the past as well as colleagues who may plan to do so in the future to send a brief abstract for a 15 minute presentation by 30 September, 2026.
A selection of contributions to the Symposium will be published in a Special Issue of Matatu: Journal for African Literary and Cultural Studies in 2027 (58.2). Deadline for contributions to be published in the Special Issue: 1 April, 2027.
Please send your abstracts, with brief bio notes, to Tanaka Chidora using the following e-mail
address: [email protected]