Friday, November 22, 2013


Listen to an interview with Robin Poynor on NPR in which he discusses "Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State" in addition to the recent exhibition Kongo Across the Water (Harn Museum).

http://www.wuft.org/conner-calling/2013/11/01/friday-november-1st-robin-poynor/
Robin Poynor and Amanda Carlson at the African Studies Association Conference (Baltimore, MD) November 22, 2013.

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Welcome



We are pleased to announce the publication of Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State (University Press of Florida, 2014).  Poets, painters, art historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, historians, and specialists in comparative religion provide localized studies about the African diaspora in Florida.

On April 2, 1513, the first Africans arrive in Florida near contemporary Melbourne Beach. Juan Gárrido and Juan González [Ponce] de León were free, African men from Spain who accompanied Juan Ponce de León onto the shores of what would become La Florida. We choose to look at this historical moment not as a voyage of exploration signaling the beginning of European colonization of what would become the continental United States but rather as the beginning of Black presence in Florida and by extension America. In response to the 500th anniversary (2013), this volume celebrates the ways in which Africans and people of African descent have shaped the history and visual culture of Florida. 


 


Africa in Florida: Five Hundred Years of African Presence in the Sunshine State
Edited by Amanda B. Carlson and Robin Poynor
University Press of Florida (02/04/2014)
Details: 528 pages; 7 x 10 inches
Cloth: $79.95   ISBN 13: 978-0-8130-4457-6