Call For Papers

Obsidian is currently seeking contributions for the special issue on Pearl Cleage.

Obsidian supports the work of writers who are telling the stories and writing the poems of the African Diaspora. As the journal has evolved, it has also been committed to publishing excellent scholarly articles. The journal seeks scholarly articles for an issue dedicated to the work of Pearl Cleage.

As a writer in several genres -- journalism, poetry, drama, essay, short fiction and novels, Cleage continues to interrogate the politics of gender, race and herstory in African American culture. Obsidian invites previously unpublished scholarly essays on any aspects of Cleage’s work. We are open to essays that engage any aspect of Cleage's oeuvre, but are particularly interested in:

- Cleage's focus on free womanhood, feminism and womanism
- Poetic style and/or voice
- Gendering race and racing gender
- Use of African Diaspora spirituality
- The politics of love and identity
- Violence and the black literary imagination
- The import of place, especially of urban spaces
- Absented whiteness
- Cleage's vision of black masculinity