2024-06-08

Blackness and the Knowledges of Intersectionality
edited by Nathalie Aghoro and Julia Faisst
RIAS Vol. 19, Fall-Winter (1/2026)
(Call open until December 30th 2024))

As the Black Lives Matter movement has laid bare the persistence of structural racism and systemic oppression against Black people in the United States, intersectionality stands at the forefront of inquiries tackling multiple and intersecting forms of structural discrimination, including racialization, sexual orientation, gender, ability, and socio-economic status. In this special issue, we seek to tackle how the presence of intersectional thought in the academy and beyond generates new epistemologies today. In what ways does intersectionality, as an analytical category and an experience focusing on overlapping and mutually constitutive systems of discrimination, engage and narrate Blackness? That is, what kinds of knowledge can an intersectional approach open up about the complex experience of Blackness, and how do academic inquiries that are informed by it shape knowledges and narratives within fields related to the study of North America, including transnational perspectives?

Consequently, how do intersectional frameworks, methodologies, and practices productively disrupt e.g. literary and cultural histories, race, gender, and disability studies today? How do they rewrite knowledge systems that have tended to oppress, marginalize, and discipline Blackness throughout history—for instance in exploring how Black storytelling and stories function as strategies of invention and collaboration (cf. Katherine McKittrick); how disability studies and Black femnist theories can be understood in their intersectional complexity (cf. Sami Schalk); or how Black communities resist racial and class inequalities brought about by public policy making (cf. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor)? In order to understand how inquiries and methodologies of Blackness cross and thereby trespass territorial boundaries—physical, geographical, epistemic, professional, institutional—of prevailing knowledge systems, contributions will discuss and reconceptualize such boundaries, expand on existing archives of knowledge (cf. Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw), and shed innovative light on the interdisciplinary work undertaken within the framework of transnational American Studies. The issue rethinks fundamental principles and prevailing discourses of intersectionality to investigate how archives of knowledge and the narratives they (dis)enable are expanded upon, transmitted, and shared via various genres and media formats that mobilize intersectional strategies and methods. We welcome submissions in the areas of Cultural Studies, Literary Studies, Media Studies, History, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, as well as Class and Gender Studies, addressing (but not limited to) the following issues:

-Knowledge Formations in Practice and Theory
-Methodologies and Theories of Intersectionality
-Lived Black Experiences vs. Creating Institutional Knowledge
-Re-Reading and Re-Writing Archives of Knowledge
-Narratives of Resistance
-Knowledge Production, Commodification, Labor
-Intersectional Pedagogies
-Queering Knowledge
-Intersectional In/Justices and Blackness
-Activism and Anti-Racism as Intersectional Sites
-Ecocritical and Posthuman Knowledges of Intersectionality
-Strategies and Processes of Solidarity, Affect, and Empathy
-Mobilities across Spaces and Places
-Border-Crossings, Transgressions, and Intersectionality
-Navigating Intersectionality and Processes of Understanding
-Intersectional Agency and Positionality
-Articulations and Dynamics of Knowing
-Understanding and Imagining Complexity
-Knowing Intersectionality through Performance, Embodiment, and Practice
-Temporalities and Iterations of Knowing
-Re-reading Histories of Intersectionality and Blackness

The length of the article should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words. The submissions should be delivered to
the Review of International American Studies via its Online Journal System by December 30th 2024.
Submissions MUST include:
1) First Name and Family Name of the Author/Auther
2) Institutional Affiliation of the Author/Auther
3) Author/Auther's ORCID number (http://www/orcid.org)
4) Author/Auther's website address
5) Author/Auther's email address
6) If the Author/Auther wishes to receive a complementary hard copy of the journal, the physical address to
which the copy should be delivered
7) The title of the article
8) A 250-350 words' abstract of the article
9) A 250-350 words' biographical note on the Author/Auther
10) Keywords
11) Disciplines represented (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_academic_disciplines)
12) The text of the article formatted in strict accordance with the principles of the MLA Handbook (9th
edition) (length between 4000 and 6000 words).
13) The bibliography of works cited formatted in strict accordance with the principles of the MLA
Handbook (9th edition)
15) All images must be submitted in print quality (min. 300 dpi)
16) All copyrighted visual material must be accompanied by permissions or licences issued to the Author.
IMPORTANT: Please, bear in mind that incomplete submissions will be automatically rejected.