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Afro-Romance Institute Afro-Romance Institute for Languages and Literatures of the African Diaspora
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
318 Arts & Science Bldg.
Columbia, MO 65211-7080
USA
voice: 573-884-0593
fax: 573-884-0595
web: afroromance.missouri.edu

The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures of the University of Missouri-Columbia has the country's only focus area in the field of Afro-Romance Studies. In order to facilitate research collaboration between our faculty members working in this field and scholars outside our institution, we have established the Institute for Languages and Literatures of the African Diaspora. The Institute serves first and foremost to expose black writers of French, Portuguese and Spanish expression to a wider audience.

The Institute's primary focus is the literature and language of selected areas of Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States, and the interrelations between these three poles of the African dispersion. It coordinates a number of both internal and external programs designed to bring the literature of black writers of French, Portuguese, and Spanish expression into the academic mainstream:

  • Curricular reform
    new courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level
    the implementation of an undergraduate minor in Afro-Romance Literature in translation
     
  • Conferences and symposia
    featuring some of the most respected Afro-Romance writers and researchers in the field

The primary methodology for research sponsored and promoted by the Institute is post-colonial cultural and linguistic theory. The goal of the Institute is not to deny traditional critical methodologies their rightful place in the history of ideas, but rather to offer a complementary way of looking at culture and literature. Because canon formation is linked to the social class and cultural context of majority cultures, we believe that an understanding of post-colonial (and post-modern) theory is essential for understanding and ultimately remedying the academic marginalization of Afro-Romance writers.