"France Noire -- Black France: the Poetics and Politics of Blackness," Paris, June 6-7, 2008.

In Memoriam: Aimé Césaire, Michel Fabre, and Ousmane Sembène. The last few years have seen an extraordinary flowering of Black consciousness in France. Individuals and collectives have organized around questions pertaining to the memory of slavery, 'race' and anti-black racism, the Black condition, and what it generally means to be Black in contemporary French society. At the same time, there has been a new wave of scholarship on Blacks in Europe and a (re)theorizingof 'blackness' in the African diaspora relative to European society and history. Paris, in particular, has always been a center of Black life worldwide, from the Négritude movement of the past to the myriad formations of Black empowerment specific to this moment. On June 6 and 7, 2008, a gathering of leading international scholars will meet in Paris to examine what we identify here as 'Black France,' that is, the Black presence and condition in French society. Madame Christiane Taubira, the esteemed member of the French Parliament whose very name is now synonymous with legislation that recognizes slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity --The Taubira Law -- will deliver the keynote address as the prelude to an exciting and stimulating series of discussions. We encourage all those interested in the African diaspora and French society to join us for what will be an historic event. The programme may be viewed here: http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Stovall/conference/.