2024 Theme | African Literature Association Conference

The 49th Annual Meeting of the African Literature Association

Filiations and Affiliations

Bonds, Entanglements, and Social Networks in African Literatures and Cultures

University of Louisville, KY, USA -- May 23-25, 2024

Drawing its inspiration from Edward Said’s discussion of the ways in which texts become ‘worldly’ through a series of filiations and affiliations, the ALA invites papers and panels that address such relations in all their forms. What are the filial structures that a text brings to its readers? What kind of affiliative readings might a critic bring to the text to disrupt the filial ties? What are the stakes in engaging in the traffic between filiative and affiliative readings? Beyond considerations of (a)ffiliated critical practice, how do literary and other cultural texts represent filiations and affiliations and in what ways do they constitute such relations? How do the practices of writing, reciting and performing in a variety of expressive forms help consolidate or disrupt filiative or affiliative ties? We invite papers and panels on all aspects of social relationships – filial and affilial as they manifest themselves in African literary and cultural texts.