Rereading the Poetry of Orphée Noir, Schwarzer Orpheus, Black Orpheus
Relire les anthologies de la poésie africaine à l’aune du concept d’Orphée Noir, Schwarzer Orpheus, Black Orpheus
Abstract
The Bordeaux conference forms part of an international research project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, bringing together Bordeaux Montaigne University (France), Humboldt University of Berlin (Berlin, Germany) and the University of Ibadan (Nigeria). Entitled ‘Cross-Connections between Nigeria and Négritude in the Decades of Decolonisation. Exploring and Translating the Archives of Orphée noir – Schwarzer Orpheus – Black Orpheus’, this project draws on the Janheinz Jahn archives in Berlin to reconstruct the intellectual and emotional ties between the German journalist and Africanist Janheinz Jahn, the writers of the Négritude movement (Césaire and Senghor) and the writers and intellectuals of the literary journal Black Orpheus published in Ibadan. Among its editors were notably Wole Soyinka and Es’kia Mphahlele (1960–1964).
Announcement
Call for Papers; Conference: Rereading the Poetry of Orphée Noir, Schwarzer Orpheus, Black Orpheus - Université Bordeaux Montaigne, France 18-19 March 2027
Argument
The Bordeaux conference forms part of an international research project funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, bringing together Bordeaux Montaigne University (France), Humboldt University of Berlin (Berlin, Germany) and the University of Ibadan (Nigeria). Entitled ‘Cross-Connections between Nigeria and Négritude in the Decades of Decolonisation. Exploring and Translating the Archives of Orphée noir – Schwarzer Orpheus – Black Orpheus’, this project draws on the Janheinz Jahn archives in Berlin to reconstruct the intellectual and emotional ties between the German journalist and Africanist Janheinz Jahn, the writers of the Négritude movement (Césaire and Senghor) and the writers and intellectuals of the literary journal Black Orpheus published in Ibadan. Among its editors were notably Wole Soyinka and Es’kia Mphahlele (1960–1964).
In his famous preface to Senghor’s Anthology of New Black and Malagasy Poetry in French (1948), Jean-Paul Sartre noted that: “Black poetry in French is, in our time, the only great revolutionary poetry.” This assessment seems to have encouraged Jahn Janheinz to edit an anthology of Black poetry and its diasporas in German translation entitled Schwarzer Orpheus (1954). In a letter addressed to George Shepperson (1980), Jahn Janheinz states that his anthology “of modern Negro poetry in European languages” will be a volume “which proves Sartre’s phrase that Negro poetry is ‘the only great poetry of our time”. For the journalist, writer and editor, African poetry and that of its diasporas deserved to be read and known throughout the world, starting with Germany, “a country where people still ignore the cultural efforts of people of colour after twelve years of Nazi propaganda”. Divided into four sections (Africa, the Caribbean, South America, North America), Jahn Janheinz’s anthology gives pride of place to the writers of the Négritude movement, Senghor and Césaire, the ‘great black poets’, with ten poems each.
This focus on poetry is further evidenced by the first issue of the journal Black Orpheus, to which Janheinz Jahn contributed alongside Ulli Beier as an editor from 1957 to 1960. In addition to Léopold Sédar Senghor’s poems “Prière aux masques” and “New York”, the issue features an article on the poetry of the Yoruba hunters and three poems by Gabriel Okara. As is well known, Jahn met Senghor at the Institut Français in Frankfurt am Main in 1951. Senghor had just given a highly acclaimed lecture on “Negro poetry”. It was following this historic meeting that Jahn began collecting texts for his first anthology of Black African and Afrodiasporic literature, *Schwarzer Orpheus* (Black Orpheus; Jahn 1954; 2nd ed. 1955; 3rd ed. 1959). Just a few months after its release in bookshops, the 4,000 copies of the first edition were sold out. In 1960, a paperback edition of 50,000 copies was released. In 1964, ten years after the first edition, Jahn Janheinz completed an expanded edition featuring 133 authors and 256 poems. By way of comparison, the first edition of Schwarzer Orpheus featured 80 authors and 160 poems.
The choice of the title Black Orpheus for the journal published in Ibadan, and later in Lagos, allows us to reconstruct networks of translation, cultural transfers and transcultural dynamics, through which ideas were able to cross linguistic and national borders. Behind this title lies a clear programmatic and organic link between Senghor’s anthology, Jahn’s anthology and the Nigerian literary and artistic journal. Above all, it evokes an aesthetic and literary choice and an ideological stance within the literary and artistic landscape of the 1930s–1970s, a period marked by anti-colonial struggles, national independence movements and the assertion of an Afro-diasporic culture and literature. Poetic writing emerges both as an expression of modernity and as a space for the reinterpretation of history. Ultimately, it is through these anthologies and this journal that we can establish how the resources of poetic writing were explored in the 1930s–1970s to express oneself and to speak of the African world.
Yet, despite their great significance, these intellectual, literary and artistic networks remain understudied. The Bordeaux conference aims to place the movement of ideas and people into context alongside literary and artistic exchanges between Europe, Africa and its diasporas. It seeks to examine how the poetic genre embodied by the figure of the Black Orpheus served as an aesthetic renewal and contributed to the emergence of new cultural practices and new literary and artistic forms in Africa. We invite proposals for papers related to the conference theme, which may include reflections on:
- African and Afro-diasporic poetry as a forum for an aesthetic and intellectual revolution;
- Poetic renewal, the search for language and the search for meaning in African poetry from the 1930s to the 1970s;
- Poetic modernity: places and objects
- The expression of exile in African and Afro-diasporic poetry: comparative and intercultural perspectives (poetry in African languages/poetry in European languages; Francophone poetry/Anglophone poetry);
- Translation and artistic and cultural transfers between Europe, Africa and its diasporas;
- Confluences and Convergences (1): studies of the anthologies by Senghor and Jahn Janheinz, as well as lesser-known anthologies such as that by L. G. Damas;
- Confluences and convergences (2): studies of poetic texts published in the journal Black Orpheus and other literary journals of the period, notably Présence Africaine in the Francophone world, but also Drums in South Africa and Transition in Uganda;
- The figure of the Black Orpheus in African and Afro-diasporic literature and the arts: postcolonial and decolonial perspectives;
- The roles of the poet in the decolonisation movement.
Submission guidelines
Please send abstracts, in English or French of 250 to 500 words as well as a short biography of no more than 100 words to:
- Prof. Dr. Sylvère Mbondobari. sylvere.mbondobari@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
- Prof. Dr. Susanne Gehrmann. susanne.gehrmann@rz.hu-berlin.de (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)
- Prof. Dr. Aderemi Raji-Oyelade. a.rajioyelade@ui.edu.ng (University of Ibadan)
before September 30, 2026.
Scientific Committee
- Prof. Dr. Papa Samba Diop (Université Cergy-Paris. France)
- Prof. Dr Romuald Fonkoua (Sorbonne Université. France)
- Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (Universität des Saarlandes. Germany)
- Prof. Dr. Ibrahima Diagne (Université Cheikh Anta Diop. Sénégal)
- Prof. Dr Sylvère Mbondobari (Université Bordeaux Montaigne. France)
- Prof. Dr Susanne Gehrmann (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Germany)
- Prof. Dr Aderemi Raji-Oyelade (University of Ibadan. Nigeria)
- Prof. Dr. Elara Bertho (EHSS. France)
- Prof. Dr. Mamadou Ba (Université Cheikh Anta Diop. Sénégal)
- Prof. Dr. Xavier Garnier (Sorbonne Nouvelle Université. France)
Places
- Domaine Universitaire, 19 esplanade des Antilles, 33607 Pessac
Bordeaux, France (33)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Attached files
Keywords
- négritude, poésie africaine, traduction
Contact(s)
- Sylvère Mbondobari
courriel : sylvere [dot] mbondobari [at] u-bordeaux-montaigne [dot] fr - Susanne Gehrmann
courriel : susanne [dot] gehrmann [at] rz [dot] hu-berlin [dot] de - Aderemi Raji-Oyelade
courriel : a [dot] rajioyelade [at] ui [dot] edu [dot] ng
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Rereading the Poetry of Orphée Noir, Schwarzer Orpheus, Black Orpheus », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Friday, July 17, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/16ldb
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