Ifriqiyya: Bruce Hall: The Morality of Descent: African Histories of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600-1960
Date: Thursday, January 26, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Room: Knox Hall 208
Bruce Hall is Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University. His most recent book is A history of race in Muslim West Africa, 1600-1960, about the development of ideas about racial difference along the West African Sahel.
Reconfiguration of Educational Inequalities in Rural Mali: Consequences on Students' Trajectories and Transitions to Work - A Presentation by Dr. Frederique Weyer
Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Time: 12:15pm - 1:30pm
Location: Horace Mann 150, Teachers College
Organized by the Center for African Education, Teachers College
In this lecture, visiting scholar Dr. Weyer will discuss the rise in access to primary education in Mali since the 1990s. This massive expansion of access is associated with a diversification of educational provision, both formal and non-formal. Based on educational trajectories of young people in rural Mali, this presentation will argue that these two recent trends resulted in a reconfiguration of inequalities, with high drop-out and increased disparities in terms of skills acquired in school. It will also analyze the relationship between schooling and work, by relating students' trajectories and their contribution to production activities.
Book discussion with Simon Gikandi: Slavery and the Culture of Taste
Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Room: Heyman Center Common Room
Panelists include:
Simon Gikandi (Princeton University)
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg (University of Michigan)
Saidiya Hartman (Columbia University)
Madeleine Dobie (Columbia Univeristy)
Moderated by Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University)
Simon Gikandi's new book Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton UP, 2011) demonstrates that the areas of slavery and the culture of taste--the world of politeness, manners, and aesthetics--were surprisingly entwined. Ranging across Britain, the antebellum South, and the West Indies, and examining vast archives, including portraits, period paintings, personal narratives, and diaries, Simon Gikandi illustrates how the violence and ugliness of enslavement actually shaped theories of taste, notions of beauty, and practices of high culture, and how slavery's impurity informed and haunted the rarified customs of the time. Professor Diouf will moderate a discussion of the book.
This event is sponsored by the Institute of African Studies, The Institute for Research in African American Studies and the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.
IAS Film and Q&A: Dead Mums Don't Cry
Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Grace Dodge Hall 281
Co-sponsored by the Center for African Education, Teachers College and the Human Rights Institute
Becoming a mother in Africa can be among the most frightening and dangerous jobs in the world. This documentary documents the struggle of Grace Kodindo, an obstetrician in the poverty-stricken central African country of Chad, to stop mothers in her country from dying. Cutting maternal mortality by 75% by 2015 was one of the eight Millennium Development Goals set by 189 countries in 2000. Five years on, progress is far behind schedule, but "Dead Mums Don't Cry" shows there is reason for hope.
Dr. Kodindo, Assistant Professor of Emergency Obstetrics care at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Medical / Advocacy Advisor to the Reproductive Health Access, Information and services in Emergency Settings (RAISE) Initiative, will be at the event to answer questions.
Elections in Africa: Senegal 2012
Date: February 13, 2012
Time: 4:00pm-6:00pm
Room: International Affairs Building 1501
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought
Panelists:
Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University)
Souleymane Bachir Diagne (Columbia University)
Etienne Smith (Columbia University)
Chair: Alfred Stepan (Columbia University)
This panel discussion is part of the Institute of African Studies' 2011-2012 series focusing on elections in Africa. Panelists will discuss the historical context, current debates, and prospects for change in the upcoming Senegalese election. This event is sponsored by the Institute of African Studies, the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion, and the School of International and Public Affairs.
IAS Film: African Underground: Democracy in Dakar
Date: February 13, 2012
Time: 6:15pm - 8:00pm
Location: International Affairs Building 1501
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought
"African Underground: Democracy in Dakar" is a groundbreaking documentary film about hip-hop youth and politics in Dakar, Senegal during the controversial 2007 presidential election. The film follows emcees, graffiti writers, and DJ's who used their music and spray cans to educate and empower each other as a response to decades of single party political rule with little attention paid to urban poverty, unemployment, crime, and corruption. This documentary bridges the gap between hip-hop activism, video journalism and documentary film and explores the role of youth and musical activism on the political process.
Cancelled: Reinventing Citizenship and Political Leadership. The Role of Civil Society and Social Movements in Consolidating Democracy in Senegal
Lecture by Professor Alioune Badara Diop
Discussant: Professor Ousmane Kane
Date: February 14, 2012
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Room: Knox Hall 208
Alioune Badara Diop is a Professor of Political Science at Universite Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar. His latest book is De la Gouvernementalité du Phénix: Elections, Logiques Sociales et Démocratie Représentative au Sénégal.
Ousmane Kane has served as associate professor of international and public affairs at SIPA at Columbia University since 2002. His most recent book is The Homeland is the Arena: Religion, Transnationalism and the Integration of Senegalese Immigrants in America.
This event is sponsored by the Institute of African Studies and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion.
University Seminar on Contemporary Africa:
Islamization from Below: Multigenerational Religious Drift in Rural French Sudan
Brian Peterson (Union College)
Date: Friday, February 17, 2012
Location: Faculty House, Room 2
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Seminar Chairs: Hlonipha Mokoena and Gregory Mann
China in Africa: Trouble in the Mines
Date: Monday, February 27, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Location: International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required
Sponsored by the the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; co-sponsored by the Institute of African Studies and the APEC Study Center
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute will host Matt Wells, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch and Phelim Kine, Senior Asia Researcher for Human Rights Watch to discuss the conclusions and implication of their recent report on Chinese investment in Africa: "You'll Be Fired If You Refuse": Labor Abuses in Zambia's Chinese State-owned Copper Mines.
The report "details the persistent abuses in Chinese-run mines, including poor health and safety conditions, regular 12-hour and even 18-hour shifts involving arduous labor, and anti-union activities, all in violation of Zambia's national laws or international labor standards. The four Chinese-run copper mining companies in Zambia are subsidiaries of China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation, a state-owned enterprise under the authority of China's highest executive body. Copper mining is the lifeblood of the Zambian economy, contributing nearly 75 percent of the country's exports and two-thirds of the central government revenue."
IAS Film: Sweet Crude
Date: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Knox 208
**Pizza will be served
This documentary film tells the story of Nigeria's Niger Delta, where billions of dollars of crude oil flow under the feet of a desperate people. Immense wealth and abject poverty stand in stark contrast. The environment is decimated. The issues are complex, the answers elusive. But in this moment, there's an opportunity to find solutions. What if the world paid attention before it was too late?
Ifriqqiya Seminar: Anne Bang: Islamic Reformist Ideas in East Africa c. 1880-1940
Date: Thursday, March 1, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 2:00pm
Location: Knox 207
Dr. Anne Bang is Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. She is co-editor of the Indian Ocean series published by Hurst&Co (London) and of the journal Islamic Africa (NWU Press).
Secular Evolution: Coalitions, Crisis and Institutional Change in Ireland and Senegal
Date: Wednesday, March 8, 2012
Time: 12pm - 2 pm
Location: International Affairs Building, Room 801
A talk by David Buckley, a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University. Moderated by Alfred Stepan, the Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia. Part of the PhD Thesis Series on Religion and Politics co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).
Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition and Atrocity in Africa's Lone Star State
Book Talk with Colin Waugh
Date: Monday, March 19, 2012
Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location: Jerome Green Hall Room 546, Columbia University Law School
Co-sponsored by the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law, SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN), and the Center for African Education at Teachers College
Campaigner, insurgent, arms dealer, warlord, commodity trafficker, elected president, international fugitive and finally prisoner, Charles Taylor sought to lead his native Liberia to change but instead destroyed it in a frenzy of violence, greed and uncontrolled personal ambition. In the process he threw much of Liberia's neighbouring region into turmoil for over a decade, finally facing judgement in The Hague for his role in the Sierra Leone conflict. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, Colin Waugh draws on a variety of sources, testimonies and original interviews - including with Taylor himself - to recount the story of what really happened during these turbulent years. In doing so, he examines both the life of Charles Taylor, as well as the often self-interested efforts of the international community to first save Liberia from disaster, then, having failed to do so, to bring to justice the man it deems most to blame for its disintegration.
University Seminar: The King of Spices: Mapping Rights to Grains of Paradise from Chaucer to Herbal Viagra
Talk by Abena Dove Osseo-Assare (Berkeley)
Date: Friday, March 23, 2012
Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm
Location: Fayerweather Hall 411
Co-sponsored with the Center for International History
Elections in Africa: Mali 2012
Date: Tuesday March 27, 2012
Time: 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: International Affairs Building 1501
Panelists include:
Susanna Wing (Haverford College)
Jaimie Bleck (University of Notre Dame)
Brandon County (Columbia University)
Tiecoura Traore (trade unionist, Mali)
Moderated by Manthia Diawara (New York University)
With two democratically elected presidents since the revolution of 1991, Mali has been celebrated as a democratic miracle, despite low voter turnout. The upcoming election, without an incumbent, will be an important test for the citizens' level of participation and the recomposition of the political field along new cleavages after a decade of presidential-inspired ideology of consensus.
This panel discussion is part of the Institute of African Studies' 2011-2012 series focusing on elections in Africa. It is sponsored by the Institute of African Studies, the School of International and Public Affairs, and SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN). The panel will be followed by the film, "Bamako sigi-kan = Bamako's pact."
What is an African: Emerging Themes in African Migration
Date: Wednesday, April 18
Time: 5:00pm-7:00pm
Where: 150 Horace Mann, Teachers College
Co-sponsored by the Teachers College Vice President's Diversity and Community Initiatives Grant
Africans have migrated across the continent for millennia. Globalization, climate change, urbanization and state policies are changing the ways that Africans travel. In the third event in our four-part event series, we turn our focus to emerging themes and the future of migration within Africa. Climate change, agricultural policy, urban-rural migration, urban refugees and the migration of teachers will feature prominently in our interdisciplinary panel discussion. Join us on April 18th at 4:30pm for a panel presentation on themes of identity and migration to and within Africa.
IAS Film: Bamako sigi-kan = Bamako's pact
Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm
Location: International Affairs Building 1501
"Bamako sigi-kan = Bamako's pact" brings a new perspective to the modern African city of Bamako, exploring how democracy took root in Mali. Filmmaker Manthia Diawara lets citizens of Bamako tell their own stories, revealing how traditions stay alive within a changing city and society.
Roland Marchal: "From a Small to a Long War: How the Somali Crisis is Reshaping the Horn of Africa (And Beyond)"
Date: Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Time: 5:00pm - 6:30pm
Location: Maison Francaise
Reception to follow
Co-sponsored with Alliance Program and the Maison Francaise
While up to the late 1990s the Somali crisis had been internationally and regionally managed as a fundamentally humanitarian crisis, post 9/11 events and the Global War on Terror became a driving force to reshape the Somali conflict in a more transnational and international narrative. The military intervention of several East African countries (Uganda, Burundi, Kenya) beyond Ethiopia means that regional politics increasingly plays a role in framing the behavior of all stakeholders. The independence of South Sudan and the emergence of a new regional oil economy involving many countries of the region also impact on the rivalries and cooperation regional actors demonstrate in what increasingly appears as a long war against militant Islam in the broader East Africa.
Dr. Roland Marchal is a Senior Research Fellow at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), based at Sciences-Po in Paris. He is a specialist on the economics and politics of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa. He was the chief editor of the French academic quarterly, Politique Africaine from 2002 to 2006. His most recent book is Guerres et sociétés. Etats et violence après la Guerre froide.
Ifriqiyya: Beverly Mack: The 21st century 'Yan Taru
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Knox Hall 208
Beverly Mack is Professor of African Studies in the Department of African and African American Studies and the Director of the University of Kansas African Studies Center (KASC). Her books include: One Woman's Jihad: Nana Asma'u, Scholar and Scribe (Indiana University Press, 2001), and Muslim Women Sing: Hausa Popular Song (Indiana University Press, 2004).
What is an African: African Diaspora Music of Popular Protest
When: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Time: 8:00pm - 10:00pm
Where: Maison Française
Organized by the Center for African Education, Teachers College
In the second event in our series, we will examine how the rich musical innovations of the African Diaspora have changed how Africans on the continent conceive of themselves. The role of Africa as an idea and a reality in African Diaspora identity has long received attention from scholars but the exchange of culture and identity goes both ways. From their very inception, many Diaspora musical styles were steeped in political protest and continue to represent some of the most profound venues for speaking truth to power in the modern era. From reggae in South Africa to Francophone hip hop in Senegal, Diaspora music is changing not only how Africans conceive of "African-ness" but how they view their relationship to power and their capacity to change that relationship. Join us a night of NYC African Diaspora performers and academic commentators performing and discussing African Diaspora Music and Popular Protest on the African Continent.
Ifriqiyya: Beverly Mack: The 21st century 'Yan Taru
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Knox Hall 208
Beverly Mack is Professor of African Studies in the Department of African and African American Studies and the Director of the University of Kansas African Studies Center (KASC). Her books include: One Woman's Jihad: Nana Asma'u, Scholar and Scribe (Indiana University Press, 2001), and Muslim Women Sing: Hausa Popular Song (Indiana University Press, 2004).
The 7th Greater New York Area Africa Historians Workshop
Date: Friday, April 13
Time: 8:15am - 6:30pm
Location: Barnard Campus
Co-sponsored by the Barnard History Department, Barnard Africana Studies Program, Columbia History Department, Columbia Institute for African Studies, Lehman College African and African American Studies Department
Panels include:
9:05-10:20: Law, Land, and Labor
10:30 - 12:00: Practices and Problems of Decolonization
1:30 - 2:50: Defining and Designing the Modern
2:55 - 4:05: Routes of Engagement: Africa, US, and China
4:10 - 5:20: Sources, Methods, and Philosophy of History
Download the full schedule here
The 7th Greater New York Area Africa Historians Workshop
Date: Friday, April 13, 2012
Location: Barnard Campus
Hosted by the History Department at Barnard College
Ninth Annual African Economic Forum: "Africa Reclaiming Africa: Changing the Rules of Engagement"
Date: April 13-14, 2012
Location: Columbia Business School, 216 Uris Hall
Organized by the SIPA Pan-African Network, African Business Club, and African Law Students Association
This year's conference will highlight the growing trend of Africans revitalizing Africa and spotlight the economic growth on the continent. It will feature Nigeria's Central Bank Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, the Group Chief Executive of Oando PLC, Nigeria's leading integrated energy group, Mr. Wale Tinubu, and other distinguished guests. Panel discussions include financial services and banking, intellectual property, land reform, health, information and communication technology, women's engagement, education, SME development, and more. Register online at http://www.AEF2012.com.
Image Matters: Photography and the Black Vernacular
Book discussion and reception for Image Matters: Archive, Photography and the African Diaspora in Europe by Tina M. Campt
Date: Friday, April 13
Time: 7:00pm
Location: The International Center of Photography, 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
** Please note: Event will be held at the ICP School, across the street from the Museum **
Participants:
Tina Campt, Barnard College
Deborah Willis, NYU
Kellie Jones, Columbia University
Kobena Mercer, Yale University
Join us for a conversation on vernacular image-making among Black Europeans and African Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. Tina Campt's new book, Image Matters, explores how Black Germans and Black Britons used vernacular photography to create forms of identity and belonging that challenged racist stereotypes. The event features scholars, photographers, archivists, and curators of Black visual culture discussing how black communities articulate their place in their society through the photographic image.
Sponsored by the International Center of Photography, Barnard College Africana Studies Program, and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Columbia University.
Film screening and Director Q&A: An African Election
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Time: 8:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: SIPA 417 (Altschul Auditorium)
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), the Committee on Global Thought, the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL), SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN), and the Center for African Education at Teachers College
The 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, West Africa, serve as a backdrop for this feature documentary that looks behind-the-scenes at the complex, political machinery of a third world democracy struggling to legitimize itself to its first world contemporaries. At stake in this race are the fates of two political parties that will do almost anything to win. Throughout the film, director Jarreth Merz depicts the pride and humanity of the larger-than-life politicians, party operatives and citizens who battle for the soul of their country. Merz will be in attendance and will answer audience questions following the screening.
IAS Film: Sometimes in April
Date: Thursday, April 26
Time: 6pm - 8pm
Location: Knox Hall 207
Pizza will be served
When the Hutu nationalists raised arms against their Tutsi countrymen in the African nation of Rwanda in April of 1994, the violent uprising marked the beginning of one of the darkest times in African history. Over the course of the next 100 days, brother would turn against brother, tearing families apart and resulting in the death of almost 800,000 people. Based on actual events that occurred during the uprising, Raoul Peck's affecting war drama tells the tale of two such brothers, whose differing loyalties found them on opposing sides of the conflict, and whose lives would never be the same following this tragic turn of events.
Ifriqiyya: Timothy Cleveland: Ethnogenesis in the Sahara, using Arabic sources
Date: Thursday, May 3
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Knox Hall 208
Timothy Cleaveland is Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia. His latest book is Becoming Walata: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation.
Related Events
The New York Historical Society presents two renovated exhibitions: REVOLUTION! THE ATLANTIC WORLD REBORN and FREEDOM NOW: PHOTOGRAPHS BY PLATON
REVOLUTION! and FREEDOM NOW address the interconnected struggles in America, France and Haiti from the late 18th through the early 19th centuries changed history, and the African American Civil Rights Movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, respectively. The series of uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen inspired this revisitation to two exhibitions which explore the subject of struggle for freedom.
WHEN: Opening November 11, 2011
Black History Month Art Exhibit
Center for African, Black, & Caribbean Studies at Adelphi University
Sunday, January 22 - Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Gallery Talk/ Reception: Sunday, February 19, 2-5pm. "Howardena Pindell: Paintings & Works on Paper."
Guest Artist: Howardena Pindell, M.F.A.
University Center Art Gallery
Open to the public
Monsieur Deficit, or How the French Invented Financial Politics, 1780-1840
Lecture by Jacob Soll, moderated by Caroline Weber
Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Location: World Room, Journalism School, Room 305
Organized by Maison Francaise
Today, we often talk about good politics in terms of balanced budgets. Politicians like to associate themselves with surpluses and their opponents with deficits. The first time politicians used numbers and accounting calculations in political debate was in France in the 1780s. Rather than simple numbers, the French Director of Finances Jacques Necker produced what he claimed were accurate state accounts. A battle of financial numbers ensued between government ministers and critics of the crown. Numbers became a part of political theater and of modern political language--and continue to play a dominant role in political debate today.
Jacob Soll received his DEA from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and his PhD from Magdalene College, Cambridge. The author of books on Machiavelli and the French Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, he is Professor of History at Rutgers University.
Caroline Weber is Associate Professor of French at Barnard College. She specializes in 18th century French literature and cultural history.
Event co-sponsored by the Program for Economic Research and Department of History
Film screening: Qui m'aime me suive
Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012
Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: TBD
Organized by Maison Francaise
Benoît Cohen, 2005, 100 min.
This film tells the story of 35-year-old Maxime, a brilliant doctor, who leads an orderly life with his lawyer wife and is admired by his friends and family. But one day he meets Chine, a singer, and gets the shock everyone close to him has always dreaded. With Mathieu Demy, Éléonore Pourriat, and Julie Depardieu.
AATF: L'Afrique francophone
Annual workshop for Teachers of French
Date: Saturday, February 11, 2012
Time: 10:00am - 4:30pm
Location: Buell Hall, 2nd Floor
Organized by Maison Francaise; workshop conducted in French
La Maison Française et le Metropolitan Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French vous invitent à une journée de séminaires sur L'Afrique francophone. RSVP à Lindsey Long au LL2787@columbia.edu
Elmont OnLine Highlighting Success: 9th Annual Black History Month Celebration
Date: Sunday, February 12, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: Elmont Memorial Library, 700 Hempstead Turnpike, Adelphi University
Open to the public
Panel Discussion on Long Island Redistricting Issues
Presentation of 2012 Carter G. Woodson Awardee
Entertainment by T.K. Blue Jazz Ensemble
African American Literary Read-In
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Time: 3:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: Fireplace Lounge, Adelphi University
Open to everyone
Join us for an afternoon of fun reading aloud literary works by Black writers. Refreshments served. Notify Ms. Mackey that you will read: cmackey@adelphi.edu
French and Francophone Cinemas in Dialogue
A roundtable discussion
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Time: 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Location: World Room, Journalism School, Room 305
Organized by Maison Francaise
Roundtable participants:
- Philip Watts, Chairman of the Department of French, Columbia (moderator)
- Madeleine Dobie, Associate Professor of French, Columbia
- Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia
- Françoise Pfaff, Professor, World Languages and Cultures, Howard University
- Sophie Saint-Just, Lecturer, Modern Languages and Literatures, Fordham University
- Lucie Chabrol, Francophone relations, Alliance Française
Film Screening: Sex, Okra and Salted Butter (Sexe gombo et beurre salé)
Date: Thursday, February 16, 2012
Time: 7:30pm - 9:00pm
Location: TBD
Organized by Maison Francaise
Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, 2008, 81 min.
Film presented in connection with the February 15 roundtable on "French and Francophone Cinemas in Dialogue." This comedy of errors by award-winning Chadian director Mahamet-Saleh Haroun (who won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010) tells the story of a family recently emigrated from the Ivory Coast to Bordeaux, reeling from a number of setbacks. An extra-marital affair leads to Hortense's separation from her older, very traditional African husband, who is in for a shock when he discovers her love affair, his eldest son's secret love life, and the responsibilities of being a single parent.
Development and Its Evangelists in the Cold War
part of The Disciplines Series: The Idea of Development Spring 2012
Date: Friday, February 17, 2012
Time: 10:00am-4:00pm
Location: Second Floor Common Room, Heyman Center
Agenda:
10:00am: Coffee
10:15am: Morning session
-
Michele Alacevich, Columbia University
George Rosen, University of Illinois at Chicago
David Engerman, Brandeis University
Daniel Immerwahr, Columbia University
Michael E. Latham, Fordham University
2:00pm: Afternoon session
-
Joseph Hodge, West Virginia University
Amy Offner, Columbia University
Bradley Simpson, Princeton University
Eating Pork in Paris
Lecture by Pierre Birnbaum
Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
Location: TBD
Organized by Maison Francaise
This talk explores how eating pork in Paris and other cities can be read as a sign of identity crisis in French society--a way of excluding from the public space others who are different, in this case, Jews or Muslims who follow dietary laws forbidding the consumption of pork.
Pierre Birnbaum is an emeritus professor of political sociology at Université Paris I and currently a visiting scholar at NYU's Tikvah Center for Law & Jewish Civilization. He is an eminent authority on the political history of Jews in France, and on relations between Jews and the State in different contemporary societies. His books include The Jews of the Republic: A History of State Jews from Gambetta to Vichy (Stanford, 1996) and Paths for Emancipation: Jews, States, and Citizenship (Princeton, 1995).
Hon. Saudatu Sani: What is the role of legislature in achieving development goals?
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Location: IAB 410
Organized by SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN)
Pizza and drinks will be provided
Join SPAN to explore the question "What is the role of legislature in achieving development goals?" with Hon Saudatu Sani, who created and chaired Nigeria's first oversight committee on the MDGs in the National Assembly.
Hon. Saudatu Sani is the former pioneer Chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on MDGs in Nigeria. A strong advocate for maternal health, she ensured that a budget line for 'reducing the maternal mortality rate' was increased and targeted at the Local Level. In addition, Hon Sani opened a Youth and Women's Development Centre which trained many of its youth with market skills that enabled them to open their own businesses.
As the Chair of "Advocacy Nigeria", a non-profit non-governmental organization dedicated to advocating for women's health rights, Hon Sani has been at the forefront of the expansion of free emergency obstetric care and funding reproductive health services in Nigeria. Hon Sani was also the first Chair of the UN Network of Parliamentarians on MDGs in Africa. She also serves on many boards.
Film screening: Broken Stones with director and special guest Guetty Felin
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Langston Hughes Auditorium, Schomburg Center, 135th St and Malcolm X Blvd.
Organized by African Film Festival, Inc. and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
To celebrate Black History Month, African Film Festival, Inc. has organized a special preview screening of Broken Stones, followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and special guests. Broken Stones is a documentary about Quartier Cathédrale (Catheral Quarter)-- the oldest neighborhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the most devastated sector in the city. Amidst the vestige of what was once the most beautiful cathedrals in the entire Caribbean, images of men and women roaming almost aimlessly in this post-apocalyptic decor are amongst the impressionist moments interwoven into the narrative fabric of this captivating documentary.
Guetty Felin, an award-winning, independent filmmaker, teacher and film curator, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and raised in New York.
African Diaspora Music and Popular Protest: Politics in a Global Age
Performance and discussion
Date: Thursday, February 23, 2012
Time: 8:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: TBD
Organized by the Center for African Education and Maison Francaise
From Hip Hop to Reggae, African Diaspora music is influencing political protest on the African continent. The Center for African Education at Teacher's College Columbia University invites you to an evening of performances and discussion by NYC musical artists and academics. Please check back for full event program.
Millennium Village Project Colloquium: The Role of the Legislature in Achieving the MDGs in Nigeria - Perspectives from the former Chair of the House Committee on the MDGs
Date: Friday, February 24, 2012
Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Location: Teachers College, Room 305
Hon. Saudatu Sani, the former Chairperson of the House of Representatives Committee on MDGs in Nigeria, will be speaking. A strong advocate for maternal health, she ensured that a budget line for "reducing the maternal mortality rate" was increased and targeted at the Local Level. In addition, Hon. Sani opened a Youth and Women's Development Centre, which trained many of its youth with market skills that enabled them to open their own businesses.
As the Chair of "Advocacy Nigeria", a non-profit non-governmental organization dedicated to advocating for women's health rights, Hon Sani has been at the forefront of the expansion of free emergency obstetric care and funding reproductive health services in Nigeria.
China in Africa: Trouble in the Mines
Date: Monday, February 27, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Location: International Affairs Building, Room 918
No registration required
Sponsored by the the Weatherhead East Asian Institute; co-sponsored by the Institute of African Studies and the APEC Study Center
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute will host Matt Wells, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch and Phelim Kine, Senior Asia Researcher for Human Rights Watch to discuss the conclusions and implication of their recent report on Chinese investment in Africa: "You'll Be Fired If You Refuse": Labor Abuses in Zambia's Chinese State-owned Copper Mines.
The report "details the persistent abuses in Chinese-run mines, including poor health and safety conditions, regular 12-hour and even 18-hour shifts involving arduous labor, and anti-union activities, all in violation of Zambia's national laws or international labor standards. The four Chinese-run copper mining companies in Zambia are subsidiaries of China Non-Ferrous Metals Mining Corporation, a state-owned enterprise under the authority of China's highest executive body. Copper mining is the lifeblood of the Zambian economy, contributing nearly 75 percent of the country's exports and two-thirds of the central government revenue."
Women's Week: A Better Life for Women in the 21st Century
Series of events organized by the SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN) to commemorate the 56th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women
Food will be served
The Impact of Climate Change and Food Security on Rural Women and Girls in Yemen
Date: March 1, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: IAB 1501
Rural Women and Girls Closing The Gender Gap on the Path to Empowerment and Sustainable Development
Date: March 6, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: IAB 1501
New Realities, New Frontiers & The Emergence of HIV/AIDS as a Source of Conflict and its impact on Rural Women and Girls
Date: March 8, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Law School, JG 106
China and Africa: Think Again
Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012
Time: 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: International Affairs Building, Room 918 Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Is China a 'rogue donor', or is China helping the developing world pave a pathway out of poverty?
Gender Wars : Rural Women and Girls' Increased Vulnerability for Human Trafficking in Pre- and Post-Conflict Zones
Date: March 9, 2012
Time: 12:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Law School, JG 105
Rhythm of Change Festival
Date: March 2-4, 2012
Location: Brown University, Providence, RI
Open to the public
The Rhythm of Change Festival, which runs March 2-4 at Brown University, brings together international artists, musicians, dancers, social activists, scholars, and students for an action-packed weekend of performances, lectures, and workshops to explore how the arts can play an instrumental role in social change and cultural understanding in Africa and its diaspora.
Classes in djembe and doun-doun drumming, West African dance and African song, yoga and meditation; workshops in music and activism, lectures about cultural preservation, dialogues about the arts' global impact, and more!
Festival guests include SIDY MAIGA, SEYDOU COULIBALY, MOUSSA TRAORE, JOH CAMARA, SOLO SANA, LACINA COULIBALY, EMILY COATES (Yale), MICHELLE BACH-COULIBALY (Brown), CHERIE RIVERS (Harvard), TOM RICCIO (University of Texas, Dallas), JENNIFER COATES (Tufts), MATT GARZA (NYU), THOMAS COBURN (Brown/Nuropa Institute) and introducing international Malian visitors SALI SOUMARE, DJIBRIL COULIBALY and ALHASSANE SISSOKO.
Tickets, Festival Schedule, and More Information: http://rhythmofchange2012.blogspot.com
SISTAS: The Musical
A Musical Journey and Joyous Celebration of African American Women from Bessie Smith to Mary J. Blige
Performance Schedule: Thurs 7pm, Sat and Sun 4:30pm, beginning March 17th Sat will be at 1:30pm and 4:30pm
SISTAS, tells the story of the struggles, the joys and the triumphs of being Black and being a woman in America, as told through the life of one woman and the women in her family. It's a story of family, of the history that binds us, and the love we share that transcends social and racial differences. A new play by Fullbright Scholar Dorothy Marcic, presented by 3-time Tony winner Hinton Battle and Jen Kay, SISTAS uses the lyrics of songs made famous by artists like Ma Rainey, Billie Holiday, Lena Horn, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Mary J. Blige and more. Hit Songs include: "Oh, Happy Day", "Mama Said", "I Will Survive", "Tain't Nobody's Business", "God Bless the Child", "Respect", "My Man", "Baby, I'm Yours", "Say a Little Prayer", "Stop in the Name of Love", "All the Single Ladies", "We Are Family"
*TICKETS JUST $39.50 (reg $69.50) with discount code SIFLYER39 (call or buy online)
*Special Student Rate $29.50 - Available day of performance, 2 hrs before @ Box Office only w/valid Student ID.
For more information visit: www.sistasthemusical.com
Subject to availability. Regular service charges apply to phone and internet orders. May not be combined with any other offer or discount. No refunds or exchanges. Blackout dates may apply. Offer may be revoked at any time. Limit 8 tickets.
Ngugi's Prison Trilogy: Detained, Devil on the Cross and Matigari
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Time: 2:15pm
Location: Heyman Center, Columbia University
Minata Koné writes:
Mahatma Ghandi wrote about Indian contribution to the Kenyan struggle in The Young India. The relationship between India and Kenya should be extended to the literary level. In that perspective, I have chosen to examine the work of radical thinker Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and acclaimed East African writer Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Spivak's Can the subaltern Speak? and what I term Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's "Trilogy" will be my trumpets. There is a possibility of delineating a single prison personality from the Trilogy books which discuss a personal and collective Kenyan history of struggle.
In her interview with Leon De Kock (A Review of International English Literature, 23:3, July 1992), Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak calls for a better understanding of the term "subaltern" transformed in many disciplines by returning to its meaning as used by Gramsci. Future works will hear her voice, and I am not pretending either to be the first to reactivate the term. The point today resides in this question: Why must one read or continue to read Antonio Gramsci today? The Gramsci-Spivak understanding of the subaltern concept is the tool that helps explore all the aspects of the Trilogy.
For more information on ICLS events, please visit icls.columbia.edu.
DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA: Muslims & Christians Creating Their Future
Film Screening
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Time: 6:30 pm: Educational Exhibits & Networking; 7:00 SHARP - 9:00 pm: Film & Audience Participation
Location: Africa Square, Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building Plaza (8th Floor), 163 West 125th Street
Please RSVP: 646-730-0500 or Spencer@ccdny.org
Participation free
In the midst of brutal violence, 200 brave Muslims and Christians met and discovered communication excellence in their days and evenings together during the 2010 2nd Annual Youth Interfaith Dialogue Conference, in Jos.
This practical evening is to offer - through African film and experience - modern tools of communication for your home, school, business, neighborhood, and global community.
Host Spencer Kapoba Chiimbwe, from Zambia, champions face-to-face, multi-faith, cross-cultural communication excellence as expert resident facilitator and Interfaith Fellow for The Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point Center. He is Coordinator for the Centre For Conflict Dialogue in New York.
Facilitators Libby and Len Traubman co-founded the 19-year-old Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue of San Mateo, California. They have co-produced five films: (1) DIALOGUE AT WASHINGTON HIGH, (2)PEACEMAKERS: Palestinians & Jews Together at Camp, (3) CROSSING LINES IN FRESNO, and (4)ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN: Graduation Day! Since January, 2012, (5) DIALOGUE IN NIGERIA has been requested from 35 nations.
Sponsors:
Centre for Conflict Dialogue in New York & Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue
Development and Empire
part of The Disciplines Series: The Idea of Development Spring 2012
David Engerman, Brandeis University
Julian Go, Boston University
Frederick Cooper, New York University
Moderator: Daniel Immerwahr, Columbia University
Chair: Mark Mazower, Columbia University
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Time: 4:00pm
Location: Second Floor Common Room, Heyman Center
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought
http://heymancenter.org/events.php?id=252
CDTR Film Festival Screening: The Redemption of General Butt Naked
Post-screening Q&A featuring Producer Greg Henry and Colin Waugh, author of Charles Taylor and Liberia: Ambition & Atrocity in Africa's Lone Star State
Date: Wednesday, March 21
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Earl Hall, Auditorium
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion and the Office of the University Chaplain
Event is open to the general public, but registration is required.
REGISTER HERE
Joshua Milton Blahyi -- aka General Butt Naked --was a ruthless and feared warlord during Liberia's 14-year civil war. Today, he has renounced his violent past and reinvented himself as a Christian evangelist on a journey of self-proclaimed transformation. Blahyi travels the nation of Liberia as a preacher, seeking out those he once victimized in search of an uncertain forgiveness. But in the end, are some crimes beyond the pale of forgiveness?
Youth, Rap Music, and the Senegalese Elections of 2012
Presented by the Journal of Global Affairs, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, and Africa House at NYU
Date: Thursday, March 29
Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm
Location (please note this recently changed): Kimmel Center, 60 Washington Square South, Room 914
RSVP at: nyu.edu/gallatin/rsvp
Long held as a beacon of stability and multi-party democracy in Africa, Senegal's presidential elections in February and March of this year engulfed the country in unprecedented controversy, violence, and protest. Mobilized, in part, by political rappers, urban youth were key players in the dynamic opposition movement that strove to bring an end to the incumbent's regime. This event will be a film screening and panel discussion about therole of rap and youth mobilizations in these highly contested elections. Clips will be screened from the documentary Democracy in Dakar alongside recent footage from the 2012 elections. A panel discussion will bring the filmmaker into conversation with scholars, observers,and participants in the movement.
Panelists:
Rosalind Fredericks (The Gallatin School, NYU)
Etienne Smith (Columbia University)
Ben Herson (Director, Democracy in Dakar)
Christian Thiam (Reporter)
Baay Bia (Composer and rapper)
Moderator: Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University)
Science, Ethics & Society Symposium: Can We Find a Common Ground in the Age of Genetics?
Date: Monday, April 2, 2012
Time: 9:00am - 3:00pm
Location: University Center Ballroom, Adelphi University
Open to the Public
Join us for a discussion by science, ethics, and business experts about issues related to new genetics based technologies and our well being in society.
Paul Robeson Dedication
Date: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Performing Arts Center Interlude Cafe, Adelphi University
Open to the public
Claiming Sovereignty: Algerian health care and humanitarian initiatives, 1954-1962
Talk by Jennifer Johnson Onyedum
Date: Friday, April 6, 2012
Time: 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Location: Faculty House (please look for signs in the lobby for event room number)
Seminar Chairs: Gregory Mann and Hlonipha Mokoena
Jennifer Johnson Onyedum is an Assistant Professor of History in the African and African American Studies Department at Lehman College-CUNY and earned her Ph.D. in History from Princeton University in 2010. Her dissertation examined the politics of medicine and international intervention during the Algerian struggle for national liberation, 1954-1962. Professor Onyedum specializes in contemporary African history, with a particular interest in North Africa, decolonization, and humanitarianism. She has received several fellowships including an Andrew W. Mellon fellowship in Humanistic Studies and awards from the Social Science Research Council, the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, and the National History Center.
7th Greater New York Area Africa Historians Workshop
Date: Friday, April 13th, 2012
Location: Barnard College - New York City
Deadline for Proposals: February 1, 2012
To all greater New York area historians and historically inclined scholars in all fields:
We, Abosede George (Barnard College) and Jennifer Johnson Onyedum (CUNY
Lehman), invite you to submit proposals for the 7th Greater New York
Area Africa Historians Workshop to be held on Friday, April 13th, 2012
at Barnard College in New York City. Proposals for papers on any topic
on Africa are welcome. We encourage submissions from scholars at any
stage in their career, including advanced PhD students, Professor, and
non-affiliated scholars Papers on completed works, advanced
works-in-progress, and exploratory works are all invited.
To participate, please submit
- a title
- a 250 word abstract
- a list of 5 keywords or key phrases that could succinctly describe the topic you are working on
- a 2 pg cv by e-mail attachment to jennifer.onyedum@lehman.cuny.edu
In your email subject heading, please be sure to type:
Proposal for 7th Greater New York Area Africa Historians Workshop
The deadline for submitting proposals is February 1st, 2012. Due to time constraints, not all proposals may be accepted. All greater New York area historians and historically inclined scholars in all fields are nonetheless very strongly encouraged to attend and actively participate in the 7th Greater New York Area Africa Historians Workshop.
The Creators: South Africa Through the Eyes of Its Artists
Date: Saturday, April 14
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
The Creators is a documentary film by Laura Gamse that shows the lives of artists and musicians as they pursue their art and seek to effect change in South Africa. Director Laura Gamse's camera reveals the impulse behind the artists' social consciousness, their individual eccentricities, and each creator's unique form of expression. Diving into the current of subversive art which fuels South Africa's many clashing and merging cultures, The Creators brings into focus the invisible connections among strangers' disparate lives-and the creative expression used to traverse the divide. The result is an intimate, refreshing and deeply revealing portrait of those remolding the legacy of apartheid. The film was honored as Best Documentary by the National Geographic Society at its All Roads Film Festival. It was also named Best Documentary with Music at the World Music and Independent Film Festival.
The theater is on the upper level at 165 West 65th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam. Admission is $13 (seniors and students $9). More information on the Festival is at http://www.africanfilmny.org/category/festival/. The director, Laura Gamse, will be present for a Q&A session after the screening.
In Exile: Writing in the Pan-African Tradition
Date: Tuesday, April 17
Time: 8:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: TBD
Please join the Africa-Diaspora Literary Society in hosting novelist, musician, and Columbia Ph.D. candidate Abdi Latif Ega in introducing his newly-released novel, Guban, and placing this novel within the context of writing "from exile . in the Pan-African tradition."
What is an African: Migration to and Within the Continent
Date: Wednesday, April 18
Time: 7:30pm - 9:30pm
Location: TBD
Organized by the Center for African Education, Teachers College
In the third event in our series, we will consider three themes in migration within and to the environment. First, we will discuss both forced and voluntary migration within the continent and their consequences for identity. Second, we will examine the role of South Asian Diaspora populations on the African continent in both historical and contemporary contexts. Finally, we will examine the role of modern Chinese Diaspora populations in Africa in the creation of modern and future African identity. Join us on April 18th at 7:30pm for a panel presentation and reception on themes of identity and migration to and within Africa.
"Whose Story Is It Anyway?: Grassroots Media Movements On The Continent"
Organized by the New York African Film Festival; co-presented by the Institute of African Studies (IAS) and Center for African Education (CAE), Teachers College
Date: Thursday, April 19
Time: 4:00pm - 9:30pm
Location: Macy 130, Teachers College
Reception to follow
No RSVP required.
African Film Festival, Inc. and Columbia University's Institute of African Studies will present a program examining the cross-section of technology and society in Africa. Using media to affect social change, grassroots movements in technology have been rippling throughout the continent, providing people with the tools needed to amplify their voices and messages. This program will highlight the initiatives spearheaded by Africans that exists in the remotest of villages and in the largest of cities and have brought the power of social media and other digital movements into the hands of those whose stories and experiences are often left told by others. More information on the festival available here: http://www.africanfilmny.org/
Schedule:
4:00: Bukola Jejeloye: Documenting Democracy - How Senegal was Won
5:00: Reception
7:00: Sherif Awad - Programming a Revolution: Reinventing Egypt through Film and Media
8:00: Jepchumpa speaks on "African Digital Art and Media"
9:00: Q&A with presenters
Pray, Kill, Eat: Relating to Animals across Religious Traditions
Annual Religion Graduate Students' Association conference
Date: Friday, April 20
Time: 8:00am - 7:00pm
Location: Knox Hall, Rooms 207 & 208
Sponsored by Institute for Religion, Culture, & Public Life and The Graduate Student Advisory Council
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/religion-gsa/2012conference/index.html
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago??
Professor Kimberley C. Patton, Professor of the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion at Harvard Divinity School.
Conference Description:
Humans have always had complex and intimate relationships with animals. Animals have been feared, revered, hunted, sacrificed, eaten, utilized, domesticated, and worshipped for thousands of years. Religious traditions have been instrumental in both reflecting and constructing humans' notions of animals and have integrated such notions into comprehensive mythical, symbolic, and ritual frameworks of meaning and action. In recent decades, however, many earlier forms of such relationships have been radically transformed in the face of rapid development. At the same time scholars like Kimberley Patton and Wendy Doniger have led efforts to rethink animals and religion from comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. This conference, therefore, engages both the shifting complexity of the modern world and a growing body of scholarship in religious studies. We seek papers that explore animals as both religious objects and subjects, and probe the myriad ways in which religions reflect, shape, and re-shape the relationship between humans and animals.
Film screening and Director Q&A: An African Election
Date: Tuesday, April 24
Time: 8:30pm - 10:30pm
Location: SIPA 417 (Altschul Auditorium)
Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), the Committee on Global Thought, the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life (IRCPL), SIPA Pan-African Network (SPAN), and the Center for African Education at Teachers College
The 2008 presidential elections in Ghana, West Africa, serve as a backdrop for this feature documentary that looks behind-the-scenes at the complex, political machinery of a third world democracy struggling to legitimize itself to its first world contemporaries. At stake in this race are the fates of two political parties that will do almost anything to win. Throughout the film, director Jarreth Merz depicts the pride and humanity of the larger-than-life politicians, party operatives and citizens who battle for the soul of their country. Merz will be in attendance and will answer audience questions following the screening. Learn more about the film here: http://anafricanelection.com/
BUNDU - Sowei Headpieces of the Sande Society of West Africa
Dates: Exhibit Opening on April 19 6pm - 9 pm
On view April 19, 2012 - June 29, 2012
Location: QCC Art Gallery, Queensborough Community College
222-05 56th Avenue, Bayside, NY 11364
BUNDU - Sowei headpieces of the Sande Society of West Africa is the title of this exceptional exhibition and the scholarly book that accompanies it. The Bundu or Sande Society is a pan-African Association of women found among several West African groups in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It educates and initiates young girls so as to enable them to assume their place in an adult society as wives and mothers and as social, economic, and political leaders. The headpieces of the Sande Society, also known as sowei helmet masks, are unique in sub-Sahara Africa in that they are the only ones worn by women. This exhibition presents sixty sculptures that display the wonderful stylistic diversity of these masks among the Bassa, Gola, Mende, and Vai peoples of Africa.
Visit the QCC website for more information:
QCC Art Gallery Website: http://www.qccartgallery.org
Africa in Brazil? Samba, History, and the Allure and Challenge of Diaspora
Lecture by Marc Hertzman, Columbia University
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Event Oval, The Diana Center, Barnard College
This event is part of the Forum on Migration at Barnard. More information is available here: http://barnard.edu/fom
"Fault Lines: Crisis in the Horn" film screening and discussion
Association of African Journalists and Writers Inaugural Event
Date: Monday, April 23
Time: 6:30 - 9pm
Location: 163 West 125th St, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, second floor art gallery
A documentary by Al Jazeera correspondent Sebastien Walker and producer Andrea Schmidt that explores the US response to draught and food crisis in Somalia. The film investigates the legacy of US engagement in Somalia, asking pertinent questions if aid to the region has become politicized, and whether or not Washington's concern with terrorism has worsened the devastation in the Horn of Africa. We invite all members of our diverse African community and Friends of Africa to engage in dialogue in this thought-provoking film about an important issue that affects all of us. Questions and Answer portion will follow the film. With special guest Al Jazeera English (producers/journalists from the film and African experts will be present)
Special Guests:
- Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Adow, Somali- Kenyan, Africa correspondent, expert on Horn of Africa issues
- Al Jazeera journalist Sebastian Walker
- Al Jazeera producer Andréa Schmidt
- New York-based African experts and professors in attendance
A Conversation with Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin: Setting up a commodity exchange in Ethiopia and doing business in Africa
Date: Wednesday, April 25
Time: 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Location: Grand Hall, NYU Global Center, 238 Thompson Street
This event will be followed by a wine and cheese reception.
**Space is limited, Please don't forget to bring your photo ID**
Please RSVP with your name and affiliation by sending an e-mail to africa.house@nyu.edu
Join us for an informal conversation with Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin on her experience setting up the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and the current trends in doing business in Africa. The first of its kind, the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange is a national multi-commodity exchange that provides low-cost, secure marketplace services to benefit all agricultural market stakeholders and invites industry professionals to seek membership enabling them to participate in trading.
Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. As described by The Economist, she is an internationally recognized thought leader on agricultural marketing in Africa and global development, with prior roles as Senior Economist at the World Bank and Senior Research Fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, as well as UNCTAD in Geneva.
This event is co-hosted by African Law Association, African Student Union, Development Research Institute, Law and Social Entrepreneurship Association, Stern in Africa, Stern Social Enterprise Association, Wagner Student Alliance for Africa, and NYU Department of Economics
NYU Postcolonial Symposium: Situating Cesaire: Pragmatics of Freedom and the Proleptic Politics of Radical Literalism
Talk by Gary Wilder, Associate Professor of Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
Response by Laurie Lambert, PhD Candidate in English, NYU
Date: Friday, April 27
Time: 3:30pm
Location: 13-19 University Place, Room 222, NYU
This talk is a reconsideration of Césaire's wartime writings in the journal Tropiques. Wilder suggests that these critical pieces already indicate the kind of political strategy Césaire would pursue during the postwar period, namely a program for self-determination without state-sovereignty based on what he called a "politics of inflection." Reading them closely thus helps us reconcile what only appear to be contradictions between his aesthetics and politics or between what seem to be radical and moderate aspects of his anticolonialism.
Interested attendees should email rajiv.menon@nyu.edu for a copy of the paper.
Dr. Auma Obama: Reading and Signing of New Memoir, "And Then Life Happens"
Date: Monday, April 30
Time: 11:30am - 1:30pm
Location: 3959 Broadway at 166th St.
Organized by the Afya Foundation and New York - Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital
http://afyafoundation.org/
"And Then Life Happens" is a candid and emotional memoir in which Dr. Auma Obama shares her own compelling story, which includes details of her close relationship with her younger brother Barack, whom she met for the first time in the 1980s. Dr. Obama, who grew up in Kenya and lived for many years in Europe, now lives in Nairobi. After working for CARE International for close to five years, she created her own non-profit foundation-Sauti Kuu (Kiswahili for "Powerful Voices") - that focuses on helping children and youth. Proceeds from book sales will go to support the foundation. Those in attendance will have the opportunity to meet Dr. Obama and purchase a signed copy of her newly released book.
What is an African: Oxford-Style Debate
Date: Postponed
Where: TBD
Organized by the Center for African Education, Teachers College
Our final event will take place in the form of an Oxford-Style debate. In this event, we will be discussing claims versus reality in cultural, philosophical and aesthetic expressions of African identity. Specifically, we will be asking the following questions:
"Why do some blacks in the Americas claim to be African while others do not?"
"Who supports and who denies these claims and to what end?"