Diasporic Magazines and Black Internationalism in Western Europe, 1918-39

With the Start-Up Bonus I plan to hire a postdoctoral researcher to work on a new project on African diasporic magazine cultures in Europe (1.0, 12 months). The project aims to study a forgotten source in the history of Black Internationalism: magazines published by African diasporic communities in Belgium, Britain and France (1918-39). Many of these magazines have been entirely forgotten and overlooked, and yet—so the project’s hypothesis goes—they played a vital role in negotiating experiences of migration, diaspora and exile. The project will explore how the form of the magazine specifically—as a moveable, malleable object—contributed to this cultural and political function. The outcome of the Start-Up project will be twofold. (1) Empirically and analytically, it will unearth a largely forgotten source for a new media history of Black Internationalism, radically locating the field of periodical studies within the global turn. (2) Practically, the postdoc and I will submit an application for a FWO junior postdoctoral fellowship on the topic and an A1 publication—both of which will build expertise towards my application for a ERC Consolidator Grant in the future.