Prof. Kweku Osam (UO alumnus, Ph.D. in Linguistics) is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ghana.  At this lunch event, he will address the upcoming Ghanian elections.

Babacar Fall
Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar / Stanford Humanities Center Fellow

An African Studies Program Baobab Luncheon (by invitation only)
Labor in Senegal: Ideological Constructions and French Colonial policy

Wednesday, May 14, noon-2pm, Location TBD

With introductory comments by

Dr. Abdoul Sow, Professor and Dean, College of Education, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar

Please contact Dennis Galvan (dgalvan@uoregon.edu) if you plan to attend.

Babacar Fall is Associate Professor of History at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, in Dakar, Senegal, the leading institution of higher learning in francophone West Africa. His research explores the changing nature of labor relations since the colonial period. His first book, Le travail forcé en Afrique Occidentale Française : 1900 – 1945 (Paris: Karthala Press, 1993) details the use of forced labor as a mechanism of social control and cultural transformation in colonial West Africa. He has also published on labor market changes in the context of contemporary structural adjustment dynamics — see his edited volume Ajustement structurel et Emploi au Sénégal, (Dakar, CODESRIA, 1996). Professor Fall has worked extensively on oral historical methods for documenting popular responses to social and economic change, publishing most recently Dialogue avec Abdoulaye Ly, historien et homme politique sénégalais (Dakar, IFAN-CAN-ENS, 2001).

Professor Fall is the founding director of the Groupe pour l’Etude et l’Enseignement de la Population (GEEP), a non-governmental organization affiliated with the Education School of the Université Cheikh Anta Diop. GEEP promotes research and direct development action designed to foster popular education and consciousness raising for development, thus putting into practice some of the key themes explored in Professor Fall’s research.

Babacar Fall was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan in 1989-90, and was a Scholar in Residence at the University of Oregon in May 2006, with support from African Studies, International Studies, and the Savage Endowment for International Peace. He is currently at Stanford University with a Humanities Fellowship.

African Studies Presents a Baobab Lecture

Mukoma Wa Ngugi
University of Wisconsin, Madson

“The Kenya ‘Crisis’ and the Pitfalls of a Second-Hand Democracy”

May 13, 2008, 4pm, Location TBD

Mukoma Wa Ngugi (born in 1971) is a poet from Kenya.

Ngugi is the author of the books Hurling Words at Consciousness and Conversing with Africa: Politics of Change.

Ngugi’s poems have appeared in Brick Magazine, Smartish Pace, Teeth in the Wind, One Hundred Days, New Black Writing and Réflexions sur le Génocide rwandais/Ten years later: Reflections on the Rwandan Genocide. He has also written political essays that have appeared in Zimbabwe’s Herald, Kenya’s Daily Nation, East African, Kwani Journal, zmag.org amongst others.

Ngugi earned a BA in political science from Albright College and an MA in creative writing from Boston University. He is currently a Ph.D. student in Post-Colonial Theory at UW-Madison.

Mukoma Wa Ngugi is the coordinator for the Toward an Africa without Borders conferences.

Romance Languages & African Studies Present

Ambroise Kom
College of the Holy Cross, African Literature

Postcolonial Migrations, ‘Banlieues’ Cultures and Identity Construction

May 5, 2008

African Studies Faculty Presentation

Peter Walker
Professor of Geography, University of Oregon

Striving for Normality in a Time of AIDS: Findings From Malawi

April 24, 2008, 4pm, 106 Condon

Oregon Hillel and African Studies Present:
John Pendergrast

“Confronting Genocide in Sudan: What You Can Do.”

180 PLC, April 3, 2008, 7:30 pm

John Prendergast is Co-Chair of the ENOUGH Project. During the Clinton administration, John was Director ofAfrican Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was directly involved in a number of peace processes throughout Africa, including the peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea. John also has worked for the State Department, members of Congress, the UN, human rights organizations, and think tanks such as the International Crisis Group and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has authored eight books on Africa, the latest of which he co-authored with actor/activist Don Cheadle, entitled “Not on Our Watch,” a New York Times bestseller. He also wrote “God, Oil and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan,” and “Frontline Diplomacy: Humanitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa.” John co-produced the documentary about northern Uganda called “Journey into Sunset.” He has been part of three episodes of CBS’ 60 Minutes which earned an Emmy Award for Best Continuing News Coverage. He is helping to spearhead a campaign involving the NBA and Participant Productions to widen awareness on Darfur. He was involved in the making of two recent documentaries, “Darfur Now” (in theaters in November) and “Sand and Sorrow” (premiering on HBO in December). John regularly contributes op-ed columns to major newspapers and journals. John travels regularly to Africa’s war zones on fact-finding missions, peace-making initiatives, and awareness-raising trips involving network news programs, celebrities, and politicians. He is a visiting professor atthe University of San Diego and the American University in Cairo.

African Studies Presents a Baobab Lecture

J. Lorand Matory
Professor of Antrhopology & African American Studies, Harvard University

“Kings, Foreigners, and Slaves:
On the Plural and Transnational Nature of the Self in the Afro-Atlantic Religions

April 4, 2008, 1pm, Knight Library Browsing Room
Reception at 12:30pm

Professor Matory studies the diversity of African, African American, and Latin American culture, with an emphasis on how differently various peoples understand identity. He is also interested in Haitian “Vodu,” Brazilian Candomblé, and Cuban Santería, which, although rooted in Africa, have deeply penetrated our urban landscape in the wake of immigration from the Caribbean to the United States. These fields inform his lecturing and writing on the poetics and politics of daily language in the United States, which explores such topics as how culturally idiosyncratic metaphors of lightness, darkness, time, money, size, and direction often guide and misguide our thinking about the world.

African Studies Presents a Baobab Lecture

Laura Fair
Professor of History, Michigan State University/University of Oregon

Seeing Gender at the Show:
Audience Composition and Film Preferences in Tanzania, 1950s-1980s

April 10, 2008, 4pm, Lillis 111

Presented by Mollie Stone, one of very few North American experts in the black South African choral song/dance genre.

Mollie Stone, Associate Conductor of the Chicago Children’s Choir, received her bachelor’s degree from Amherst College in ’01 and her master’s degree in conducting from Westminster Choir College in ’04. She served as the graduate Associate for the Amherst College music department in 2001 during which she received a grant from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation to create a DVD on black South African choral music. She has done numerous workshops on black South African choral music, and is currently studying its role in the struggle against HIV.

For further information, please contact Val Rogers, vrogers@oip.net

Schedule of Events

Morning Town Hall, Knight Library Browsing Room 9-1pm By Invitation Only

9:00 Registration – sign in, name tags, pastries and coffee
9:15 Welcome (Stephen Wooten, UO African Studies)
9:30 Round table meeting
Introductions of each participant and project (16 scholars, 10 NGOs registered)
10:15 am Break out discussion sessions by theme

NGOs
College/University scholars and reps/Educators

Noon Lunch and Keynote speaker (Ancient Ways)

1pm NGOs – Break and transition to amphitheater, vendors set-up at supplied tables
-or-
Scholars – Future directions: Africa in Oregon Consortium (Dennis Galvan, UO African Studies)

Afternoon Fair, EMU Amphitheater 1pm-4pm

Vendors/Info Tables

Performers
1:45-2:45 – Vakasara Mbira Ensemble
Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center
Zimbabwean Music performance

3:00-4:00 – Hokoyo Marimba Ensemble
Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center
Zimbabwean Music performance

About Africa in Oregon Day

WHO:Organized by UO African Studies
African Studies at UO is a new and quickly growing area studies program. What began in 2005 as a committee of professors whose work focuses on Africa, has grown – with the help of a $170K Department of Education Title VI-a UISFL Grant – into an undergraduate minor program with quarterly guest speakers, annual faculty seed grants, new African language offerings, a vibrant Artist in Residency program, and enhanced Africana library holdings that benefit the entire university. With future funding pending, the program intends to continue developing these and new elements of the African Studies Program.

WHAT: Among our goals is to build a strong community of Oregon Africanists. We are hosting a day of networking and celebration among Africanist scholars, advocacy organizations, and performers dispersed throughout Oregon.

WHO: The participants of Africa in Oregon Day will come to the UO campus from all over the state of Oregon. We expect 40 participants: 15 professors and educators from outside UO, 10 professors from UO, three performance groups, and 12 organization representatives.

WHY: The purpose of the fair is to raise awareness on the UO campus of African issues, celebrate diversity, promote Africa-related classes and internships, and publicize the African Studies minor. The symposium will become an annual meeting and hub for networking among Oregon University System Africanist scholars and statewide NGOs, thereby reducing isolation among Oregon Africanists and strengthening this vital community. Building partnerships and community among Oregon scholars, groups, and organizations will lead to shared resources and educational discourse among Africanist colleagues around the state. The symposium and fair will benefit participants, UO student and general Eugene populations, and will establish UO as a valuable point of entry for statewide academic and community