| Callaloo | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviated title (ISO) | Callaloo |
| Discipline | African-American studies, literature, African studies |
| Language | English |
| Edited by | Charles Henry Rowell |
| Publication details | |
| Publisher | Johns Hopkins University Press (United States) |
| Publication history | 1976–present |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| Indexing | |
| ISSN | 0161-2492 (print) 1086-3141 (web) |
| OCLC number | 41669989 |
| Links | |
Callaloo was founded in 1976 by its current editor, Charles Henry Rowell, when he was teaching at Southern University (Baton Rouge). He originally described the fledgling periodical as a “Black South Journal,” whose function was to serve as a publication outlet for marginalized writers in the racially segregated US American South.
Shortly after Dr. Rowell moved the journal to the University of Kentucky at Lexington in 1977, Callaloo began to publish black writers nationwide. He had transformed Callaloo into an African Diaspora journal by 1986, when the Johns Hopkins University Press became its publisher, after he moved to the University of Virginia (Charlottesville) as Professor of English. After a fifteen-year tenure at Virginia, he moved Callaloo again—this time to Texas A&M University in College Station, where it has remained since 2001. At this point in time, the life of Callaloo—as a forum continuously publishing creative writing, along with visual art and critical texts about literature and culture—is probably the longest in African American literary history.
The journal is published quarterly in February, May, August, and November by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Authors featured in the journal include Betty Adcock, Bruce Bond, Catherine Bowman, Laila Lalami, Ashanti White, Marleen Barr, and Charles H. Rowell.
In addition to receiving grants of support from national agencies such as the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Callaloo has garnered a number of national honors, including the best special issue of a journal from the Council of Editors for Learned Journals for "The Haitian Issues" in 1992 (Volume 15.2 & 3: Haiti: the Literature and Culture Parts I & II); honorable mention for the "Best Special Issue of a Journal" in 2001 from the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the American Association (Volume 24.1: The Confederate Flag Controversy: A Special Section); and recognition for the Winter 2002 issue from the Council of Editors for Learned Journals as one of the best special issues of that year (Volume 25.1: Jazz Poetics).