As Black History Month comes to a close, continue to celebrate, learn, and amplify Black stories. The Bucknell Press continues to partner with the Griot Institute for the Study of Black Lives and Cultures by publishing the  Griot Project Book Series, an interdisciplinary series of “monographs, collections of essays, and poetry exploring the aesthetics, art, history, and culture of African America and the African diaspora.” 

The Griot Project Book Series has published seven fantastic books, including Testimony: Found Poems from the Special Court for Sierra Leone (2021) by Shanee Stepakoff. The text is a moving collection of poetry drawn from public testimonies at a UN-backed war crimes tribunal in Freetown. The Bucknell Press recently published a Q&A with the author about her process and the art of listening. While the series continues to grow, the Bucknell Press continues to support the events and programs coordinated by the Griot Institute that occur throughout the year. 

Beyond the Griot Book series, the Press recently published two independent titles that align fruitfully with the Griot mission as well as the celebration of Black History Month: Challenging the Black Atlantic: The New World Novels of Zapata Olivella and Gonçalves by John T. Maddox IV and Mayaya Rising: Black Female Icons in Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Culture by Dawn Duke.

In Challenging the Black Atlantic, John T. Maddox IV, an assistant professor of Spanish and African American studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, analyzes how the historical novels of Manuel Zapata Olivella and Ana Maria Gonçalves map black journeys from Africa to the Americas in a way that challenges the Black Atlantic paradigm that has become synonymous with cosmopolitan African diaspora studies. Unlike Paul Gilroy, who coined the term and based it on W.E.B. DuBois’s double consciousness, Zapata, in Changó el gran putas (1983), creates an empowering mythology that reframes black resistance in Colombia, Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. In Um defeito de cor (2006), Gonçalves imagines the survival strategies of a legendary woman said to be the mother of black abolitionist poet Luís Gama and a conspirator in an African Muslim–⁠led revolt in Brazil’s “Black Rome.” These novels show differing visions of revolution, black community, femininity, sexuality, and captivity. They skillfully reveal how events preceding the UNESCO Decade of Afro-Descent (2015–2024) alter our understanding of Afro-⁠Latin America as it gains increased visibility. 

“Maddox offers us a refreshingly provocative revision of Black Atlantic theory and African diasporic authorship across Luso-Hispanic communities. His insightful readings will further enrich our understanding of the complex and nonlinear facets of African diasporic Blackness, Black Atlantic religious traditions, and Black women in impactful, new ways.”

—Nick Jones, author of Staging Habla de Negros

“John Maddox’s Challenging the Black Atlantic is as monumental as the historical sagas the book studies. . . . Originally conceived, meticulously researched, and well written and argued, the book is an intellectually sophisticated interdisciplinary study that will certainly leave its vital mark in the field of Afro-diaspora studies for years to come. A must read!”

—Emanuelle Oliveira-Monte, author of Writing Identity: The Politics of Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Literature

Mayaya Rising: Black Female Icons in Latin American and Caribbean Literature and Culture by Dawn Duke, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, re-centers previously overlooked black heroines of Latin America and the Caribbean. In answer to the historical dearth of models of African ancestry in the region, Mayaya Rising explores and celebrates the work of writers who intentionally center powerful female cultural archetypes. In this inventive analysis, Duke proposes three case studies and a corresponding womanist methodology through which to study and rediscover these figures. The musical Cuban-Dominican sisters and former slaves Teodora and Micaela Ginés inspired Aida Cartagena Portalatin’s epic poem Yania tierra; the Nicaraguan matriarch of the May Pole, “Miss Lizzie,” figures prominently in four anthologies from the country’s Bluefields region; and the iconic palenqueras of Cartagena, Colombia are magnified in the work of poets María Teresa Ramírez Neiva and Mirian Díaz Pérez. In elevating these figures and foregrounding these works, Duke restores and repairs the scholarly record.

“Dawn Duke’s study of black women writers in the Hispanic Caribbean—its continental components included—breaks important new ground. Its intersectional stress on race and gender illuminates the path of authors who draw strength from feminist and anti-racist legacies owed to iconic ancestresses. The cultural and linguistic diversity of this literary corpus pulverizes homogenizing assumptions about ‘Spanish American’ literature.”
—Silvio Torres-Saillant, coauthor of The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat

“[A] carefully detailed and focused discussion of Afro-Latina/Caribbean women writers from Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Colombia. Duke discusses strategies of resistance, recuperation of memory, and rewritings of history, centering her reading of Afro-diasporic women’s literature transversally within Hispanic Caribbean and Latin American Literature Studies. It is a much-needed repositioning . . . ‘Enhorabuena,’ Dawn Duke. As an Afro-Boricua writer, I celebrate Mayaya Rising. Latin American and Caribbean Literary Studies need more books like this.”
—Mayra Santos-Febres, author of La amante de Gardel

Velocipedomania: A Cultural History of the Velocipede in France is a collection that foregrounds the significance of the nineteenth-century French invention that later developed into the modern bicycle. Edited by Corry Cropper, professor of French at Brigham Young University, and Seth Whidden, professor of French literature, Queen’s College, Oxford, the book includes three original source texts translated from French—available for the first time together in English—that explore the cultural significance of the velocipede. This engaging volume explores how the new machine represented cutting-edge technology and gives readers a glimpse into the material culture of France in the late 1860s, while underscoring the machine’s importance to the study of gender, culture, and the history of sport.

Here we speak to the editors about class mobility, transportation, and translation:

Why were you both drawn to studying the velocipede and its parallels to French culture? 
Both of us enjoy cycling—in fact we have cycled together before—so this was a topic that ticked all the boxes for us in terms of our scholarly focus on nineteenth-century France and our interest in the sport.

Throughout the text, you argue that the velocipede becomes a “symbol for economic mobility” that creates a “sense of middle-class national solidarity” (24-25). Can you explain how the wooden wheeled machine became such a symbol, particularly during late Second Empire in France?

The velocipede amazed people because it was new and different. Seeing people zipping around under their own power on two wheels without touching the ground attracted attention. And since the velocipede was a French invention, it served as a source of pride for the entire country. Its very existence implied progress, energy, freedom, and inventiveness. Initially, riding was primarily an upper class hobby, but the velocipede quickly became ubiquitous in Paris and inspired people of different classes to ride. More physical mobility also held the promise of more social mobility: people who couldn’t afford a horse suddenly saw new opportunities.

Would you call the velocipede a modern form of transportation?
We would call it the modern form of transportation. Besides the railroad, no form of transportation changed life more in France than the velocipede and its descendant the bicycle. In fact, it could be argued that globally the bicycle remains the most important form of transportation ever invented; it provides mobility for people from every socioeconomic level in nearly every region on the planet.

Can you speak to the experience of translating Note on Monsieur Michaux’s Velocipede and the Manual of the Velocipede compared to the operetta Dagobert and His Velocipede?¹ While both texts emphasize the influence of the velocipede in French culture, do the different genres communicate that influence to varying extents? 
The Note is more technical in nature, and the original author was more a bureaucrat than a writer. So we found it challenging to translate. But it remains an important piece because it argues for the utility of the velocipede. The operetta, Dagobert and His Velocipede, appeals to a popular audience and is designed to entertain. Since the action is set in the Middle Ages, the velocipede becomes a source of anachronistic humor: we had great fun working on it. The Manual of the Velocipede straddles the two: it features some practical advice alongside arguments in favor of the velocipede’s usefulness, and it ties the velocipede into French history, French literature, and the tradition of gallic humor.

In the introduction, you note Timothée Trimm’s front-page article in Le Petit Journal (July 5, 1868) and his greatest fear that “the velocipede will damage France’s literary reputation” (7). As French professors (as well as translators of these texts), did Trimm’s fear have any merit?
Not really. But it does highlight the fear people have around any new technology while also implying that one of the most central aspects of French identity and pride in the late 1860s was their literary tradition. It might be comparable to an American journalist being afraid that TikTok would destroy Hollywood and the American cinematic tradition.

While your book addresses this question in detail, why, briefly, was the enthusiasm for the velocipede so short-lived? 
The main company that manufactured and promoted the velocipede suffered from infighting and financial problems. Then in 1870, France was lured into a devastating war against Prussia, and in 1871 there was a bloody civil war known as the Paris Commune. All this taken together spelled the end of the fervor for the velocipede in France². But the cultural forms created around the velocipede would help shape how the bicycle was perceived later in the century.

Velocipedomania features forty black and white and six color images, including a number of illustrations of the velocipede that originally appeared in newspapers, musical scores, manuals, and advertisements from the 1860s. It is available for order in paperback, hardback, and ebook.

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[1] This book provides a translation of an operetta, Dagobert and his Velocipede, along with a recording of music
from the work (found here: velocipede.byu.edu)

[2] Significantly, the velocipede played a role during the Commune. In fact, Corry co-authored an article about it in a volume co-edited by Seth