Beyond Borders: Black-Indigenous Encounters between Audre Lorde and Antonina Kymytval

Following the Beyond Borders meeting series hosted by the WGSS Department at the University of South Florida, we warmly invite submissions for a special issue of The Archive Revisited Gazette celebrating Chukchee poet Antonina Kymytval’ and her brief but profoundly resonant encounter with Audre Lorde during the 1976 Afro-Asian Writers Conference in Tashkent.

Lorde’s essay “Notes from a Trip to Russia” (Sister Outsider, 1984) and her poem “Political Relations” (Our Dead Behind Us, 1986) offer the only detailed accounts of this meeting, providing a rich starting point for reflection, creative engagement, and critical exploration.

This special issue invites contributors to explore the intertwined legacies of Black and Indigenous feminist Internationalism, shining a light on the intimate and often overlooked connections that transcend Cold War boundaries. At its heart, the issue celebrates Kymytval’s poetics, Indigenous resilience, and the bold, affective solidarities she shared with Audre Lorde—what Lorde evocatively described as “making love…through our interpreters.”