This collection of essays attempts to expand the notion of the "Black Atlantic" beyond its original racial, geographical, linguistic and cultural borders while acknowledging its remarkable ability to disturb established historical truths and to go beyond traditional dichotomies, thereby providing an essential tool for cross-cultural understanding. It is divided into four sections, each of them dealing with a different approach to the question of the "Black Atlantic". "Definitions" touches on the various limitations of Gilroy’s original concept. "Readings" focuses on how the "Black Atlantic" can be productively used in readings of certain literary texts. "Practices" shifts towards the practical applications of the concept in order to explore the impact it has had on academic disciplines and examine to what extent it may have altered their epistemology and working procedures. Finally, "Dialogues" engages with the "Black Atlantic" from the perspectives of two creative writers whose work includes transatlantic themes and characters.

Table of contents

Introduction
Bénédicte LEDENT and Pilar CUDER-DOMÍNGUEZ

Part I: Definitions

Whose Black World Is This Anyway? Black Atlantic and Transnational Studies after The Black Atlantic
Laura CHRISMAN

The ‘barque ouverte’ (Glissant) or The Black Atlantic (Gilroy): Erasure and Errantry
Kathleen GYSSELS

Crossing the Black Atlantic to Africa: Research on Race in ‘Race-less’ Cuba
Christabelle PETERS

Away from a Definition of African Literature(s)
Daria TUNCA

Drawing a Line between Europe and the ‘Other’
Gary YOUNGE

Part II: Readings

Taking Shortcuts: Literary Perspectives of the ‘Black Atlantic’
John McLEOD

Carnival and the Carnivalesque in Robert Antoni’s Carnival
Imen NAJAR

Tornadoes Full of Dreams: Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and African Literature of the Transatlantic Imagination
Wumi RAJI

A Black Atlantic Agenda: Artistic / Narrative Strategies in Caryl Phillips’s The Atlantic Sound and Isaac Julien’s Paradise Omeros
Eva Ulrike PIRKER

Part III: Practices

Mapping the Black Presence in England and Wales
Kathleen CHATER

Teaching the Black Atlantic in Spain: Institutionalisation and European Convergence
Mar GALLEGO

Teaching Caribbean and Black Atlantic Studies in France: A Few Elements of Understanding
Judith MISRAHI-BARAK

Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic in Africa’s Other Diaspora
Emad MIRMOTAHARI

Part IV: Dialogues

“Who are you calling a foreigner?”
Caryl PHILLIPS in Conversation with John McLEOD

“A Person of Many Places”
Lawrence HILL in Conversation with Pilar CUDER-DOMÍNGUEZ

Notes on Contributors