"West African Writings and Pan-African Networks: Black Periodicals and Print Culture in the Late- Victorian British Empire"
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Roehampton
Department Name: School of Humanities
Abstract
This project will examine Black perspecjavascript:__doPostBack('ctl00$oSaveBar$btnNext','')tives in periodical and newspaper networks in Great Britain and the
British colonies during the late Victorian era (1880-1910). While the project will consider other forms of
literature and writings, the focus will remain on periodicals and newspapers amidst the "golden age" of journalism and a technologically advancing, globalizing media. My research will locate, analyze, and prioritize
Black contributions and writings in order to understand early networks and advocacy for-and against-Pan-
Africanism in an expanding empire. While the attempt is to understand Black newspapers and periodical
networks across the empire, this study will focus primarily on West Africa, with a particular focus on Sierra
Leone and Lagos, two cosmopolitan colonies particularly significant for the Pan-African movement. This thesis
will contribute to the scholarly imperative to decolonize periodical studies by analyzing popular and lesser-
known Great Britain publications alongside West African Anglophone newspapers and periodicals. My
research will incorporate perspectives of Blackness and African-ness in British culture with lesser-known and
more widely known Black British intellectuals like Edward Blyden, Africanus Beale Horton, and Orishatukeh
Faduma. Accessibility beyond the institution is imperative for this project, so my dissertation will incorporate a
website that maps and includes writings by these West Africans and Black Britons in order to understand an
often-overlooked Pan-African community in the Victorian era. As many of these periodicals and newspapers
exist only in databases or archives, particularly those from West Africa, the website will aim to provide
excerpts to these writings in order to improve accessibility to people beyond academia. I will show that
periodicals, so key to the imposition of colonial power, were themselves already being 'undisciplined', deconstructed, and reconstructed, as Black writers used them to generate new networks and new ways of
understanding race in the closing years of the Victorian era.
British colonies during the late Victorian era (1880-1910). While the project will consider other forms of
literature and writings, the focus will remain on periodicals and newspapers amidst the "golden age" of journalism and a technologically advancing, globalizing media. My research will locate, analyze, and prioritize
Black contributions and writings in order to understand early networks and advocacy for-and against-Pan-
Africanism in an expanding empire. While the attempt is to understand Black newspapers and periodical
networks across the empire, this study will focus primarily on West Africa, with a particular focus on Sierra
Leone and Lagos, two cosmopolitan colonies particularly significant for the Pan-African movement. This thesis
will contribute to the scholarly imperative to decolonize periodical studies by analyzing popular and lesser-
known Great Britain publications alongside West African Anglophone newspapers and periodicals. My
research will incorporate perspectives of Blackness and African-ness in British culture with lesser-known and
more widely known Black British intellectuals like Edward Blyden, Africanus Beale Horton, and Orishatukeh
Faduma. Accessibility beyond the institution is imperative for this project, so my dissertation will incorporate a
website that maps and includes writings by these West Africans and Black Britons in order to understand an
often-overlooked Pan-African community in the Victorian era. As many of these periodicals and newspapers
exist only in databases or archives, particularly those from West Africa, the website will aim to provide
excerpts to these writings in order to improve accessibility to people beyond academia. I will show that
periodicals, so key to the imposition of colonial power, were themselves already being 'undisciplined', deconstructed, and reconstructed, as Black writers used them to generate new networks and new ways of
understanding race in the closing years of the Victorian era.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Laura Peters (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Ardyn Tennyson (Student) |