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Disciplining Race: Crossing Intellectual Borders in African American and Postcolonial Studies

One of the common conceits of intellectual work, particularly in postcolonial the­ory, is that it is cosmopolitan in nature. Postcolonial critic Edward Said has made a virtue of the intellectual who crosses political and cultural boundaries.1 Julia Kristeva has theorized cosmopolitanism as a political and intellectual position in Nations Without Nationalism. In my own research into the recent development of the field of Postcolonial Studies, however, I have found that political borders have been quite effective in reducing intellectual exchanges between individuals work­ing, nominally, on the same topic. In this paper, I will argue that the US–Canadian border exists not only along the 49th Parallel but also extends its reach across aca­demic fields of inquiry—specifically, this paper will be looking to the divisions and potential intersections between Postcolonial and African American Studies.