CALL FOR PAPERS
The 12th Annual Africa Conference
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Welcome to the homepage of the Annual Africa Conference at Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tennessee. Each year the department hosts academics, independent scholars, policymakers, professionals, and graduate students in an international conference on various themes on African and Diasporan African history and related subjects. Interested individuals are encouraged to submit abstracts relevant to the theme of this years's conference.

Theme for the 2026 Conference
Identities, Continuities, and Transformations: Women, Youths, and Children in Africa and the African Diaspora

Conference Dates: April 15-17, 2026
Format: Virtual

The conveners invite submission of abstracts for and panel proposals for the 12th Annual Africa Conference on the theme indicated above. The conference will provide an opportunity for critical dialogue on the lived experiences of women, youth, and children in global African contexts. Papers will interrogate historical and evolving perspectives on these groups, the complex forces that have shaped their identities, voices, roles, representations, challenges, and agencies in diverse African and Diasporan settings. The conference will also explore how historical movements and structures have impacted these groups and how they have responded with their own imaginations of the contemporary world.

The conference aims at fostering intellectual discourse across disciplines on the theme identified above; thus, it welcomes contributions from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to Africana studies, history, literature, anthropology, sociology, gender studies, political science, geography, religious studies, and cultural studies.

Suggested Sub-Themes:
Sub-themes and potential topics around which the conference is organized may include but are not limited to the following:

  • Women’s movements across historical spaces
  • Women, children, and enslavement
  • Second-generation Africans in diasporic communities
  • Women activism and resistance movements
  • Feminism and feminist thoughts and theories 
  • Women, youth, and patriarchy
  • Gender-based violence, gender bias and stereotyping, and women’s rights
  • Youth agency, activism, andinnovation
  • Youth education, employment, and entrepreneurship
  • Childhood in African anddiasporic contexts: rights, care, and vulnerability
  • Representations of women in popular culture
  • The phenomenon of child soldiering in African conflicts
  • Displacement, trafficking, and other forms of child abuse
  • Women and opportunities: education, career, politics, entrepreneurship, etc.
  • Women and economic independence: property and land ownership, etc.
  • Women’s health and reproductive justice andwellness
  • Women and the expression of traditional gender norms
  • Women and the youth in religion and fellowships
  • Motherhood: traditional and contemporary practices
  • Youth andsubstance abuse: drug addiction and other health risk behaviors
  • Gender identity and sexual orientation
  • Womenand youth in the labor sector
  • Women in the civil rights struggle in the Americas
  • Digital transformation and culture: youth in mass and social media
  • Women transformational leaders: past and present
  • Women in science and technology
  • Youth culture and representations in the age of globalization
  • Women and youth education: access and funding challenges

Submission Guidelines
Each prospective presenter should electronically submit an abstract/panel proposal of no more than 500 words by Jan. 31, 2026. Abstracts prepared as Microsoft Word document should include the following information: 

1.      Presenter’s first and last (surname) name
2.      Title of paper
3.      Institutional affiliation of each presenter
4.      Contact information (mail address, phone number, and email address).

SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT

Note that the submission of an abstract automatically grants conference organizers the right to publish it in the conference program and website.

Registration
Mandatory non-refundable registration fees for presenters are as follows:

Regular: $50 by Jan. 31, 2026; late: $100 by Mar. 15, 2026
Graduate Students: $25 by Jan. 31, 2026; late: $50 by Mar. 15, 2026

REGISTER HERE
Follow the instructions on the link to make your payment.

Conference Program
 TBA

Keynote Speakers
 Dele Layiwola, PhD., Professor of African Studies, University of Ibadan
Rebecca Dixon, PhD., Professor of Women Studies, Tennessee State University
Moses Ochonu, PhD., Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of History, Vanderbilt University

Conveners
 Adebayo Oyebade, PhD., Professor of History & Department Chair
 aoyebade@tnstate.edu

Gashawbeza Bekele, PhD., Professor of Geography
gbekele@tnstate.edu

Conference Venue
Tenneessee State University
Avon Williams Campus
330 10th Avenue North
Nashville, TN  37203

Hotel Accomodation
Not applicabe for the 2026 conference

Publication of Selected Papers
Conference papers will be eligible for publication in the bi-annual international academic journal, Global Africa: Journal of African and African Diaspora Studies. All submitted articles are subject to peer review.

Questions
Please, direct all questions to tsuafricaconference@tnstate.edu