Call for Papers:
The Black Atlantic, Women, and the Majestic: Queens, Imperatrixes, and Royal Representations
A Symposium
April 1, 2027
University of Pittsburgh
**Submission deadline October 30, 2026**
Black queens reign in the cultural imaginary – from Cleopatra to Shonda Rhimes’s Netflix series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story (2023) to Gina Prince-Bythewood’s feature film The Woman King (2022) to Netflix’s documentary African Queens: Njinga (2023) to Angela Bassett’s unforgettable portrayal of Queen Ramonda in Marvel’s Black Panther (2018) to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Dramatized, fictional, historical, and political figures of Black women’s leadership and resistance have inspired contemporary cultural productions and popular and scholarly narratives of the past and have been accompanied by a seeming rise in Black women’s prominence within electoral politics. It is here, at the intersection of the scholarly and the popular, the contemporary and the historical, that we situate this symposium on the history, politics, media representation, and aesthetics of “Black majesty” (Nicole Willson). Bringing together scholars of monarchy, premodern critical race studies, Black studies, media studies, gender and sexuality, political science, and Atlantic World resistance and rebellion, this scholarly gathering centers questions of race, gender, empire, and power around the category of “Black queens,” figures of majesty, rule, and resistance in the Black Atlantic.
Featured Keynote Speakers:
Jessica Marie Johnson, historian
Jessica Marie Johnson is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the Johns Hopkins University. Johnson is a historian of slavery in the U.S. South and Caribbean. She is the author of the prize-winning monograph Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, August 2020).
Vanessa Riley, novelist
Vanessa Riley is an acclaimed author known for captivating novels such as Island Queen, a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and Queen of Exiles, an ABC View Lit Pick. Her craft highlights hidden narratives of power, love, and sisterhoods of Black women and women of color in historical fiction, romance, and mystery genres.
We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on topics related to “The Black Atlantic, Women, and the Majestic: Queens, Imperatrixes, and Royal Representations.” Our historical scope spans the medieval and premodern periods to contemporary revisionings of historical figures and stories.
**Submission deadline October 30**
Please submit individual paper proposals of up to 300 words with the title of the paper, name, institutional affiliation (if applicable), e-mail address, and a brief 2-page curriculum vitae, by email attachment to medren@pitt.edu.
Sponsored by the Medieval & Renaissance Studies Program, Early Modern Worlds Initiative, University of Pittsburgh Momentum Funds, Center for African American Poetry & Poetics, Center for Latin American Studies, World History Center, Center for African Studies, Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program, European Studies Center, Global Studies Center, and the Departments of French and Italian, History, and Sociology
For more information, contact conference organizers: Crystal Eddins at cne11@pitt.edu, Chloé Hogg at hoggca@pitt.edu, and Pernille Røge at per20@pitt.edu.