We are delighted to share this call for papers for a book project based on the course of the Biafra war and its literatures.

On the 12th of January 1970, the ceasefire had been certified after the thirty-month Nigerian Civil War. This historical moment, more prominently identified as the Biafra War has attracted multidisciplinary scholarship, creativity and research. However, much more important than the continuous call for secession which has still not happened about fifty (50) years after, it is imperative to interrogate the outcomes of the war as manifest in its consequences. Creative productions that have proceeded after the declaration of the war, spelling the interventions, mediations and even the (in)actions of international forces and organizations during the war. Others have also searched for evidence that the Biafran temperament has lingered, or that the spirit has been or is being exorcised or re-branded after and since the oxymoronic ‘no victor, no vanquished!’ This proclamation, made to mark the end of the thirty-month duel, might also have marked the beginning of variant hostilities. While most of these issues have been presented in the form of creative literature, memoirs and autobiographies, this book project seeks well researched proposals on the sub-themes listed below, and indeed much more on related scholarship:

Crossfires and Wildfires: Fifty Years after Biafra War Ceasefire
Biafra before the war
Nigeria before Biafra
Biafra War and the Postcolonial Aftermath
Typologies, and Discourses on Biafra War and its Literatures
Revolution or Revelation of Biafra Nationhood?
The Revolution of Five Majors and Biafra War
Militancy in Nigeria after the Biafra War
Remote and Immediate Causes of the Biafra War
Biafra War Period and Historical Exclusion
Religion and Education in the Biafra War Era
Science and Technology in the Biafra War Era
Conscription, Child Soldiers and Emergency Training
Discourses on Odumegwu Ojukwu’s Biafra War Speeches
Other Nigeria-Biafra War Speeches
Igbo Oratory and the Biafra War
Biafra War Song Performances and Jingles
Language and Propaganda in Nigeria-Biafra War
Journalism and the Biafra Question
African Union and the Stand on Biafra
The United Nations and the Stand on Biafra

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Abstract submissions of around 250 words are to be sent to the managing editor, Uchenna David Uwakwe at uwakwe.uchenna@futo.edu.ng or to the associate editor at abba.abba@fulokoja.edu.ng no later than February 28, 2020.

Authors of accepted proposals will be contacted before March 15, 2020 and earlier submissions more than two weeks after. The full papers are expected on or before May 31, 2020. Correspondence with authors will commence (for purposes of revision and emendation) within one month of submission.

Papers are to conform to the MLA style sheet 7th edition. The organizers hope to publish this collection with a reputable international publishing outlet by September 2020.

Categories: Calls for & opportunities, Research, Studies, Teaching

Tags: Biafra, Biafran War, books, Call for submissions, Culture, history, journalism, language, literature, Nigeria, oral histories, Performance, technology, writing