Welcome to ASWAD
ASWAD is the premiere international scholarly organization for researchers, educators, practitioners, and community members seeking to further understanding of Africa and the African Diaspora. ASWAD was founded in 2000 and today is the largest scholarly organization focused on the study of Africa and the African Diaspora. With over 900 individual and institutional members, the ASWAD community is based in the United States, as well as in the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, and Africa. ASWAD is also a multilingual and broadly interdisciplinary organization, with strong representation from the humanities and social sciences and increasing engagement with STEM disciplines, medicine, public health, information science and museum studies. By joining you will be informed of all the Association's events and initiatives, and be eligible to participate in ASWAD conferences and governance.
The deadline to submit a proposal to present a paper, panel, or film has been extended! Abstracts are now due January 21, 2025. Click Here to submit your proposal.
Become a Conference Sponsor Today! Review the Conference Sponsorship Packet Here. Complete and Submit Sponsorship Form Click Here.
GIVE TO CONNECT
In 2025, we want to support our Global South Members with their conference travel.
We can reach this goal with everyone's support.
MEMBERSHIP
Click here to update your membership and be the first to learn about ASWAD events, job openings, and opportunities to have your work promoted to our members and the broader public.
ASWAD Memberships are valid for 2 years.The membership renewal period begins once your current one reaches its anniversary date. Check your inbox for a renewal reminder!
“I’ve known rivers”: The Ecologies of Black Life and Resistance
Our host site, Saint Louis, sits at the confluence of two iconic rivers, the Mississippi and the Missouri. These continuously moving waterways have carved into the landscape, reshaping the bedrock that guides humans, plants and animals together. They can yet prove unpredictable as their banks rise and retreat as they nourish and cleanse. ASWAD’s 2025 Conference theme takes as its inspiration the river, and waterways, as an analytical framework for Black lives past and present. In addition to Langston Hughes’s poem, Vincent Harding’s book, There is a River suggests the river as a metaphor for Black freedom struggle. Rivers are “powerful, tumultuous, and roiling with life; at other times meandering and turgid, covered with the ice and snow of seemingly endless winters.” At its best, the Black freedom struggle “has moved consistently to the ocean of humankind’s most courageous hopes for freedom and integrity.”
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