'Situating Black British Writing': Beyond the Research

This Special Issue, Blacklines 3, presents the research project 'Situating Black British Writing', generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust. At the heart of the research is networking tuned to Black voices UK-wide and specifically to Black British scholars minoritized within the UK academy. Such voices, significant for their absence, have been positively heightened within this research through targeted networking. Central to the developing network arising from this process are the universities: Goldsmiths, Bristol, Leeds and York, in extended conversation with Black British Writers and Scholars (BBWaSA), the member organisation within which many more universities and independent scholars are represented. 

Importantly, also, members of the editorial team of the forthcoming Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Black British Writing  have been drawn into the core conversation. 

The ensuing conference, 'In the shadow of Empire? Situating Black British Writing' (22-23 September 2023), collaboratively hosted by London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), signifies a crucial opening up of the dialogue begun within the research network that we have developed, and the body of work to which many of us contribute as writers and scholars.