Introduction

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Acknowledgments

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson, one of the co-conveners of the 42nd annual ALA conference, would like to thank fellow conveners: Nuru Akinyemi (Kennesaw State University), Chérif Diop (Kennesaw State University), Nathan Suhr-Sytsma (Emory University), Subha Xavier (Emory University), Ana Teixeira (Emory University), Simona Muratore, (Emory University) for the countless hours spent together planning and organizing, selecting speakers, reviewing and evaluating conference abstracts and much more. The quality of our work and effort are well represented by the selected papers included in this JALA special edition. Special thanks to Saundra Rogers who managed the business side of the conference and to Patrick Harbin who created the conference website. My thanks also go to Kennesaw State and Emory University students, especially Amandine Ballart, Stephanie Iasiello and Marion Tricoire for their invaluable help.

I am also indebted to the administration of Kennesaw State University and Emory University for their financial support, without which the conference would not have happened in Atlanta.

Last but not least, Mary Ellen and I would like to thank the reviewers of this special JALA edition for their invaluable feedback to the contributors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

MaryEllen Higgins

MaryEllen (Ellie) Higgins is associate professor of English at the Pennsylvania State University. Her books include The Western in the Global South (coedited with Rita Kerestezi and Dayna Oscherwitz) and Hollywood's Africa After 1994. She has published articles in Research in African Literatures, African Studies Review, African Literature Today, and Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, among other venues. She is associate producer of Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Naked Reality Les Choses et les mots de Mudimbe.

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson

Lucie Viakinnou-Brinson is professor of French and Francophone Literature at Kennesaw State University (GA). Her publications include: Eco-Imagination: African and Diasporan Literatures (coedited with Irène Assiba d'Almeida and Thelma Pinto), a chapter in Teaching Africa: A Guide for the 21^st Century Classroom, (Lundy and Negash), book translations and articles on foreign language pedagogy. She co-convened the 2016 ALA Conference in Atlanta. She founded Seeds of Knowledge, a nonprofit organization improving literacy in underserved schools across Africa.