Anywhere But Here Hardback - 2015

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP THAT EXPANDS THE BOUNDARIES OF PAUL GILROY'S THE BLACK ATLANTIC Contributions by Keiko Araki, Ikaweba Bunting, Kimberly Cleveland, Amy Caldwell de Farias, Kimberly Gant, Danielle Legros Georges, Douglas W. Leonard, John Maynard, Kendahl Radcliffe, Edward L. Robinson Jr., Jennifer Scott, and Anja Werner Anywhere But Here brings together new scholarship on the cross-cultural experiences of intellectuals of African descent since the eighteenth century. The book embraces historian Paul Gilroy's prominent thesis in The Black Atlantic and posits arguments beyond The Black Atlantic's traditional organization and symbolism. These essays expand categories and suggest patterns that have united individuals and communities across the African diaspora. They highlight the stories of people who, from their intercultural and often marginalized positions, challenged the status quo, created international alliances, cultivated expertise and cultural fluency abroad, as well as crafted physical and intellectual spaces for their self-expression and dignity to thrive. What, for example, connects the eighteenth-century Igbo author Olaudah Equiano with 1940s literary figure Richard Wright; nineteenth-century expatriate anthropologist Antenor Fermin with 1960s Haitian migrs to the Congo; Japanese Pan-Asianists and Southern Hemisphere Aboriginal activists with Jamaican-born Marcus Garvey; or Angela Davis with artists of the British Black Arts Movement, Ingrid Pollard and Zarina Bhimji? They are all part of a mapping that reaches across and beyond the boundaries typically associated with the "Black Atlantic." Kendahl Radcliffe, Long Beach, California, is a lecturer of African American studies at University of California-Los Angeles and assistant professor of history at El Camino College, Compton Center. Jennifer Scott, Brooklyn, New York, is an assistant professor at the New School for Public Engagement, Parsons School of Art and Design History and Theory, and Pratt Institute Graduate School of Arts and Design. Anja Werner, Berlin, Germany, is an independent historian. Her publications include The Transatlantic World of Higher Education: Americans at German Universities, 1776-1914.