ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism provides an international, intersectional, and interdisciplinary overview of, and approach to, Pan-Africanism, making an invaluable contribution to the ongoing evolution of Pan-Africanism and demonstrating its continued significance in the 21st century.

The handbook features expert introductions to, and critical explorations of, the most important historic and current subjects, theories, and controversies of Pan-Africanism and the evolution of black internationalism. Pan-Africanism is explored and critically engaged from different disciplinary points of view, emphasizing the multiplicity of perspectives and foregrounding an intersectional approach. The contributors provide erudite discussions of black internationalism, black feminism, African feminism, and queer Pan-Africanism alongside surveys of black nationalism, black consciousness, and Caribbean Pan-Africanism. Chapters on neo-colonialism, decolonization, and Africanization give way to chapters on African social movements, the African Union, and the African Renaissance. Pan-African aesthetics are probed via literature and music, illustrating the black internationalist impulse in myriad continental and diasporan artists’ work. 

Including 36 chapters by acclaimed established and emerging scholars, the handbook is organized into seven parts, each centered around a comprehensive theme:

  • Intellectual origins, historical evolution, and radical politics of Pan-Africanism
  • Pan-Africanist theories
  • Pan-Africanism in the African diaspora
  • Pan-Africanism in Africa
  • Literary Pan-Africanism
  • Musical Pan-Africanism
  • The contemporary and continued relevance of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century

The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism is an indispensable source for scholars and students with research interests in continental and diasporan African history, sociology, politics, economics, and aesthetics. It will also be a very valuable resource for those working in interdisciplinary fields, such as African studies, African American studies, Caribbean studies, decolonial studies, postcolonial studies, women and gender studies, and queer studies.

chapter |32 pages

Introduction

On the Intellectual elasticity and political plurality of Pan-Africanism

part I|54 pages

Intellectual origins, historical evolution, and radical politics of Pan-Africanism

part II|98 pages

Pan-Africanist theories

chapter 5|12 pages

Black nationalism

chapter 7|13 pages

Pan-Africanism and decolonization

Between the universal and the particular

chapter 8|11 pages

Africanization

Historical and normative dimensions

chapter 9|11 pages

Black Consciousness

chapter 10|12 pages

Afrocentricity

chapter 11|12 pages

African feminism

part III|86 pages

Pan-Africanism in the African Diaspora

chapter 14|15 pages

Pan-Africanism in the Caribbean

chapter 17|13 pages

“Long Live African Women Wherever They Are!”

Black women’s Pan-African organizing during the Black Power era

part IV|114 pages

Pan-Africanism in Africa

chapter 18|16 pages

Pan-Africanist in the court

W. E. B. Du Bois and his vision of Ethiopian internationalism

chapter 20|15 pages

Amilcar Cabral, Cabralism, and Pan-Africanism

The dialectic of revolutionary decolonization and revolutionary re-Africanization

chapter 24|18 pages

African social movements

part V|77 pages

Literary Pan-Africanism

chapter 26|14 pages

The History of Literary Pan-Africanism

Overview/survey essay

chapter 27|17 pages

Literary Pan-Africanism in African epics

The legends of Chaka Zulu and Sundiata Keita

chapter 29|16 pages

“… Black People, come in, wherever you are …”

Pan-Africanism and Black internationalism in the Black arts movement

chapter 30|13 pages

Maya Angelou’s Afrocentric journalism

A contribution to Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance

part VI|52 pages

Musical Pan-Africanism

chapter 31|11 pages

Pan-Africanism in jazz

chapter 32|13 pages

Pan-Africanism in Funk

chapter 33|14 pages

Pan-African Aesthetic

Pan-Africanism in Afro-Beat

part VII|21 pages

The contemporary and continued relevance of Pan-Africanism in the 21st century