"Rethinking the Popular Arts in a Global World"
Professor Simon Gikandi
Professor of English, Princeton University
Monday, January 28
6:00pm, 612 Schermerhorn
Dept. of Art History and Archaeology
Professor Gikandi is Robert Schirmer Professor of English at Princeton University. His major of fields of research and teaching are the Anglophone Literatures and Cultures of Africa, India, the Caribbean, and Postcolonial Britian, the "Black" Atlantic, and the African Diaspora. He is also interested in the encounter between European and African languages in the modern period, literature and human rights, and writing and cultural politics. He is the author of many books and articles including Writing in Limbo: Modernism and Caribbean Literature and Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism. His latest prize-winning book is Slavery and the Culture of Taste, which argues that slavery was constitutive of the culture of refinement and taste that developed in Britain and the United States in the Eighteenth Century. He's also published several provocative interventions in the literature on PIcasso and primitivism.
MALI: FRENCH WAR, AFRICAN PEACE?
Gregory Mann and Roland Marchal
Tuesday, January 29, 2013 5-6:30 p.m.
East Gallery, Buell Hall
FREEDOM PAPERS: AN ATLANTIC ODYSSEY IN THE AGE OF EMANCIPATION
A roundtable with Rebecca Scott and Jean Hébrard
Wednesday, January 30, 2013, 6-7:30 p.m.
East Gallery, Buell Hall
"Kenya at the Crossroads: Election 2013"
A panel discussion with Fabienna Hara, Abdullahi B Halakhe, Jackie Klopp Elections in Africa Series
Tuesday, February 5, 2013, 4-6pm, 1512 IAB
"Minerals, Mines, and Workers in Extractive Economies"
A panel discussion Anya Shiffrin, Hannah Appel, Tutu Alicante
Worlds of Work in Africa Series
Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 5-7PM, 509 Knox Hall
A History of Motherhood in Nineteenth Century Uganda
Speaker: Rhiannon Stephens, Columbia University
Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 6pm-8pm, Faculty House
Abstract: This paper traces the very different ways in which people mobilised motherhood as a social institution and an ideology in central and eastern Uganda as they faced the rapid economic and political changes of the nineteenth century. It argues that this was a period of contradictions in relation to motherhood?s role in the societies of the region. Motherhood remained central to social cohesion, particularly in the east, in a continuation albeit not unchanged of a much older tradition. This was reflected in the power wielded by queen mothers and in the political and ritual importance of a woman?s children to her kin. At the same time and especially in Buganda, men sought often through violence to undermine both the queen mother?s authority and the importance of her family in the kingdom. These tensions came to a head at the end of the century with the imposition of colonial rule and the exclusion of women from power.
Daniel Hoffman, University of Washington
"The Work of War, War as Work"
Worlds of Work in Africa Series
Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 4-6pm, 1512 IAB
"Informal Work and the Rise of Social Entrepreneurship"
Worlds of Work in Africa Series
A Conversation with C. Sara L. Minard, and Grace Davie, author of "The poverty question and the human sciences, 1850-2012," forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in late 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013, 4-6pm, 1512 IAB
Jesse Shipley, Haverford College
Living the Hiplife: Celebrity and Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Popular Music
A book discussion and film screening
Worlds of Work in Africa Series
Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 4-8pm, 509 Knox Hall
"Phenomenology of Islamic Prayer"
A conference led by Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Friday, April 26, 2013, 10am-5pm, 509 Knox Hall
- New Courses in African Studies
A History of African Cities
Section 001, Call Number: 26750, Points: 3
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies W3915
Day/Time: M 11:00am - 12:50pm, 207 Knox Hall
Instructor: Jinny Prais
East Africa and the Swahili Coast
Section 001, Call Number 71402, Points: 3
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies W3130
Day/Time: TR 10:10am-11:25am. Location to be announced
Instructor: Kai Kresse
Readings in African Intellectual History
Section 001, Call Number 25553. Points: 3
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies G6144
Day/Time: W 11:00am-12:50pm
Instructor: Kai Kresse
- Gregory Mann: "France in Mali: the End of the Fairytale"
- Gregory Mann: "Mali Is Not Too Far Gone"
- Gregory Mann on the situation in Mali
- International Herald Tribune / Global New York Times Op-Ed by Séverine Autesserre: "The Only Way to Help Congo"
- Watch a video of our recent panel on rebellion and elections in Mali
- See a video of an interview with Mamadou Diouf at the 9th Annual Agence Française de Developpement (AFD) and the European Development Research Network (EUDN) Conference
- Gregory Mann comments on what the French elections will mean for French-African relations in this post on the "Africa is a Country" blog.
- Gregory Mann asks "Why is so much outside coverage of the Mali crisis so bad?" on the Africa is a Country blog
- Mali: Democracy, the Coup and the Anti-globalization Left - Right Questions, Wrong Answers?" is the latest article on Mali by Columbia historian Gregory Mann
- New post on "The war in Mali's North - to what effect?," written by Gregory Mann, is available on the Africa is a Country blog
- Gregory Mann writes from Paris, where a march for peace took place on Saturday, on the "Africa is a Country" blog
- The Foreign Policy website features "The Mess in Mali," the latest article by historian Gregory Mann
- Gregory Mann, professor of African History at Columbia, discusses the Malian coup with colleagues in "Mali: How Bad Can it Get?" on African Arguments Online
- African Arguments Online features "Hungry for Democracy: The Malian Peasantry and the Coup," by Brandon County, PhD candidate in history at Columbia and Brian Peterson, Associate Professor of History at Union College
- Gregory Mann, associate professor of history at Columbia, writes a guest post for Africa is a Country on the coup in Mali.
- Mamadou Diouf comments on the Senegalese run-off elections on France 24
- The new book "The Time of Youth Work, Social Change, and Politics in Africa" by visiting scholar Alcinda Honwana will be released in August 2012 by Kumarian Press. Learn more on the publisher's website.
- Committee on Global Though research fellow Etienne Smith writes on "Lessons from Senegal's Democracy" on the Baraza Ijtihad blog
- Graduate students of Columbia's department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies launch new online forum dedicated to making academic scholarship relevant to current realities. Visit the Baraza Online homepage, and learn how to contribute on our Opportunities page.
- Mamadou Diouf comments on the first round of the Senegalese presidential elections and Wade's legacy in an interview with University of Cheikh Anta Diop (Dakar) instructor Ibrahima Sarr
- MIA candidate Foday Sackor speaks at the 13th annual Committee on Teaching About the United Nations Conference on "Education IS a Human Right."
- Graduate students of Columbia's department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies launch new online forum dedicated to making academic scholarship relevant to current realities. Learn how to contribute on our Opportunities page.
Dual Certificate in African Studies (Universite Paris 1-Columbia University)
A year-long program to examine critical issues and perspectives about Africa and its relationship to its past as well as its place in today's global world. More info
Letter from the Director
Read the Letter from IAS Director, Mamadou Diouf.
Watch videos of our recent events


