Podcasts about african studies center

In the news today: For our first story of the day focusing on campus news, MSU's status reaffirmed after accreditation scare. For our second story focusing on more campus news, MSU unveils final design concepts for permanent campus shooting memorial. For our final story focusing on culture, MSU's African Studies Center celebrates its 65th anniversary.

In this episode, we sit down with Melissa Martin, the Assistant Director of the African Studies Center at Boston University, to explore her journey and interests within the sphere of international public health. With experience spanning NGOs and academic institutions, she offers a unique perspective on driving impactful programs and advancing African studies. Martin bridges global impact with her commitment to serving her local communities, giving us insight into her path of making substantial contributions to public health, educational access, and program sustainability. 

The second Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in Agriculture was held in mid-November. What were the outcomes from the forum? How can China further assist Africa's Agriculture Modernization? Professor Justice Norvienyeku from School of Tropical Agriculture and Forestry, Hainan University, and Zhang Jin, associate professor with the African Studies Center, Shanghai Normal University give us more insights.

Professor Omolade Adunbi joins Juliet and Erik on the podcast to talk about China's free trade zones in Nigeria. Adunbi is the Director of the African Studies Center, Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies, Professor of Law, and Faculty Associate in the Program in the Environment at the University of Michigan. His research explores issues related to governance, infrastructures of extraction, environmental politics and rights, power, violence, culture, transnational institutions, multinational corporations, and the postcolonial state.Recommendations:Omolade:Music of Fela KutiPower, Knowledge, Land: Contested Ontologies of Land and its Governance in Africa by Laura German (2022)Erik:Episode of the Sinica Podcast: Robert Daly of the Kissinger Institute on the morality of U.S. China policyLaufey's music, specifically her new album BewitchedJuliet:Cooperating for the Climate: Learning from International Partnerships in China's Clean Energy Sector by Joanna Lewis (2023)

Tawana Kupe is the vice chancellor of the University of Pretoria in South Africa. In December 2019, Professor Kupe was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in Humanities by Michigan State University. He's on the advisory board for the Alliance for African Partnerships.Founded by Michigan State University in 2016 in collaboration with African colleagues, the Alliance for African Partnership (AAP) is a consortium of MSU, ten leading African universities, and a distinguished network for African research institutes. AAP members are committed to working in equitable partnership to transform lives and address global challenges. The AAP builds on MSU's long-term engagement in Africa, building on the foundation laid by the African Studies Center and evolving models of engagement in line with AAP's guiding principles of accountability, equity, inclusivity, sustainability, and transparency. Conversation highlights: (:37) – “It's always wonderful to be at MSU, one of the top leading institutions in the world that makes a difference in the United States, but also globally.” (1:12) – “In essence, the Alliance for African Partnerships is an alliance of academic institutions dedicated to using knowledge to transform lives around the world and in Africa.” (3:06) – “What it does is to choose and pair women from the African continent with a mentor at their institution and a mentor at MSU.” (5:32) – “Translating research impacts and insights into greater societal impact is the next frontier.”  (6:47) – “The knowledge that we have can erase two of the big existential crises we have in the world: the crisis of our humanity and the crisis of the planet.” (8:11) – “The partnership is a godsend.” (11:04) – “There is no society that is ever developed without a free media and a free press.” Listen to “MSU Today with Russ White” on the radio and through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your shows.

Happy Friday FFF Family! Jess is back this week with another podcast for your listening pleasure. Today, she talks about how she has been able to keep moving forward during 2020 and sprinkles in a bit about a musical and Disney. Of course, In Black History This Week is also in this podcast with the help from the African Studies Center website at Penn (https://www.africa.upenn.edu/K-12/Today_B_History.html). Let us know what you think of the podcast and have a great weekend!

Tocqueville said, “We need to work at making democracy work.” That is the springboard from which this episode begins. Kurtis Lockhart fills in for Mark Lutter as today's host, and our guest is Professor Nic Cheeseman. Nic is a political scientist at the University of Birmingham, and was formerly the head of the African Studies Center at Oxford University. His research focuses on a range of topics, from democracy and elections, to development and institutional change, all of which we will discuss in this episode. Nic is the author or editor of ten books on African Politics, including Democracy in Africa: Successes, Failures, and the Struggle for Political Reform and How to Rig an Election. Nic shares with us some of the projects he is working on, and we discuss anti-corruption messaging, foreign aid, China in Africa, and redrawing African countries' borders, as well as invisible election rigging, “sweet spot” strategies, and counterfeit democrats. Tune in today! Key Points From This Episode: •   Nic shares the projects that he is working on, including one on elections and COVID. •   Anti-corruption messaging, corruption fatigue, and the need to change incentive structures. •   The value of redesigning messages rather than reinforcing the scale of the problem. •   Nic's concerns about the Department for International Development being merged into the foreign office body. •   The only thing Nic thinks will counter the significance of China in Africa is bigger investment. •   Nic's thoughts on foreign aid serving geopolitical concerns or power competitions. •   What Nic thinks the international development community should prioritize – do less, better. •   How Tocqueville's writings on democracy have helped shape some of Nic's thinking. •   Why Nic believes that Jeffrey Herbst's suggestion to redraw borders in Africa is unfeasible. •   What Nic is interested in about cities, and his views on urbanization, and urban or rural bias. •   What has made Lagos such a successful city and how other African cities can follow suit. •   Why invisible election rigging is one of the biggest challenges to contemporary democracy. •   Sweet spot strategies include gerrymandering, the exclusion of a rival candidate, and so-called subtle violence or intimidation. •   Nic is worried that other governments will learn subtle intimidation and use it to win elections. •   Going from high-level thinking about institutions to actual on-the-ground implementation when one constantly has to worry about “counterfeits.” •   Democracy in Africa's collaboration with The Continent, a free newspaper in partnership with The Mail & Guardian, South Africa. Links Mentioned in Today's Episode: https://twitter.com/Fromagehomme (Prof. Nic Cheeseman on Twitter) https://www.linkedin.com/in/nic-cheeseman-a57bb292/ (Prof. Nic Cheeseman on LinkedIn) https://profcheeseman.wordpress.com/ (Prof. Nic Cheeseman) https://twitter.com/AfricaDemocracy (Democracy in Africa on Twitter) http://democracyinafrica.org/ (Democracy in Africa) https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Africa-Successes-Political-Approaches/dp/0521138426/ (Democracy in Africa) https://www.amazon.com/How-Rig-Election-Nic-Cheeseman/dp/0300204434 (How to Rig an Election) https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Economy-Elections-Africa-Democracy/dp/110841723X (The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa) https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development (Department for International Development) https://www.amazon.com/Religion-International-Development-Palgrave-Politics/dp/3030382222 (Regional and British International Development Policy)... Support this podcast

To commemorate Lunar New Year, this week's episode focuses on China-Africa relations. In the news wrap, we talk about China-Africa trade, some recommended reads and a podcast on China-Africa, as well as Russia-Africa relations, reports of an extended US travel ban for some African countries, Isabel Dos Santos's Angolan assets seizure, and more.  Our featured conversation is with Jamie Monson (@jmonson1), Professor of History and Director of the African Studies Center at Michigan State University (@MSUAfrica). Her research focuses on Chinese development assistance to Africa. She is a specialist on the TAZARA railway, a development project built in Tanzania and Zambia with Chinese development cooperation in the 1970s. We talk about her book, Africa’s Freedom Railway: How a Chinese Development Project Changed Lives and Livelihoods in Tanzania, and her related documentary, TAZARA stories. The new documentary film relies on oral history interviews to share people’s experiences with the introduction of the TAZARA railway. We also talk about seeing technology from the user's perspective and inequalities in academic partnerships across regions. The segment with Jamie Monson begins at 13:42.  … More Ep84. A Lunar New Year conversation with Jamie Monson on China-Africa relations, seeing technology from the user perspective, and more

Hij had de geschiedenis in kunnen gaan als de held van Afrika, maar werd een van de ergste dictators: Robert Mugabe. Vandaag werd bekend dat hij op 95-jarige leeftijd in Singapore is overleden. De voormalig vrijheidsstrijder bleef lang aan de macht en zijn volk betaalde daar een hoge prijs voor. Wat voor land laat Mugabe na en wat gebeurt er met het systeem dat hij heeft opgebouwd? Te gast zijn Zimbabwe-kenner Peter Hermes en Mirjam van Reisen van het African Studies Center in Leiden.

24.04.2019 Making Sense Of A Changing World: Poetry And Music In Contexts Of Political Instability Professor Kelly Askew, a renown anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker, explores how music and poetry can offer opportunities for ordinary people to navigate, make sense, and negotiate moments of political transitions. This talk includes video-clips, poems, and insights from her anthropological research in East Africa, and most notably in the island of Zanzibar – a place where people have used rap music, Taarab, and vernacular poetry to navigate everyday challenges and negotiate moments of political upheavals. Besides Zanzibar and East Africa, this talk reflects more broadly on how artistic performances today can serve as an orienting device in a collective moment marked by rapid mutations and a more uncertain future. Speaker Kelly Askew, Director of the African Studies Center, Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

Dr. Obert Hodzi, a scholar at Boston University's African Studies Center and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki joins Eric & Cobus to discuss his new book "The End of China's Non-Intervention Policy in Africa" and why he thinks this major Chinese policy shift is happening in Africa faster than in other parts of the world. Join the discussion. Are you concerned about China’s move away from non-interventionism in Africa and elsewhere or do you think Beijing is right to protect its overseas interests? Let us know what you think.   Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque | @oberthom Email: eric@chinaafricaproject.com   Amazon: The End of China's Non-Intervention Policy in Africa   Be sure to join our weekly email newsletter mailing list for a carefully curated selection of the week's top China-Africa news. Sign up here.   Eric & Cobus believe in being fully-transparent. Click here to find out more about their backgrounds and all relevant disclosure information.

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Naomi André's innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today's audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet's Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein's Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André's central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music's place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women's Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Naomi André’s innovative new book, Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement (University of Illinois Press, 2018) is an example of a concept she calls “engaged musicology.” Positioning herself within the book as a knowledgeable and ethical listener, André seeks to understand the resonances and importance of opera to today’s audiences, performers, and scholars. To do this, she focuses on seven works and two continents. André places opera in the United States in conversation with opera in South Africa, the only country in Africa that has a continuous operatic tradition from the nineteenth century until the present day. Her work in South Africa began when she traveled with renowned opera singers George Shirley and Daniel Washington to that country as part of a project through the African Studies Center at her home institution of the University of Michigan. There she found a rich operatic life that included the performance of new works, such as Winnie: The Opera by Bongani Ndodana Breen as well as new interpretations of canonical operas such as a South African reimagining of Bizet’s Carmen called U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, both of which she features in Black Opera. The other works she considers are From the Diary of Sally Hemings by William Bolcom and Sandra Seaton, Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin, along with Carmen and two American versions of that opera, Oscar Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones and the MTV production, Carmen: A Hip Hopera. André’s central concern is how the history of race relations and changing gender roles in both countries impacted the development, performance, composition, and reception of opera. To do this, she provides what she terms a “shadow history” of opera culture to help her readers understand “black operas” (that is operas by black and interracial compositional teams, about black subjects, and the issues around black opera singers) that have been hidden due to social, political, and economic reasons rather the quality of the works and performers. Nestled within the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, African Studies, and cultural theory, this truly interdisciplinary monograph points to a new way to analyze music’s place in the past and the present. Naomi André is Associate Professor in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Women’s Studies, and the Associate Director for Faculty at the Residential College at the University of Michigan. She received her B.A. from Barnard College and M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research focuses on opera and issues surrounding gender, voice, and race. Her publications are on topics including Italian opera, Schoenberg, women composers, and teaching opera in prisons. Her earlier books, Voicing Gender: Castrati, Travesti, and the Second Woman in Early Nineteenth-Century Italian Opera (2006) and Blackness in Opera (2012, co-edited collection) focus on opera from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries and explore constructions of gender, race and identity. In addition to serving on the Executive Committee for the Criminal Justice Program at the American Friends Service Committee (Ann Arbor, MI), she brings her expertise on race, politics, and opera to the public through numerous appearances on public panels and symposia, and in the popular press. Kristen M.

Audio podcast from the Ifri conference on Angola (April, 26th 2018) - Mathias de Alencastro, São Paulo Research Foundation - Manuel Ennes Ferreira, School of Economics and Management – ISEG Lisbon - Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, University of Oxford Discussant: - Chloé Buire, CNRS - LAM Bordeaux Chair: - Alain Antil, Director of the African Studies Center, Ifri

This week on StoryWeb: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was in Birmingham, Alabama, protesting racism and racial segregation in the city. He was arrested on Good Friday for demonstrating, which a circuit court judge had prohibited. While he was in solitary confinement, Dr. King wrote what is arguably the most important letter in American history. It was addressed to the white clergy of Birmingham, who had publicly criticized Dr. King for getting involved in a matter far from his home in Atlanta. Dr. King began drafting his responses on the very newspaper in which the eight white ministers had published their “call for unity.” According to the Washington Post, he continued writing on “scraps of paper, paper towels and slips of yellow legal paper smuggled into his cell.” The justly famous letter – now known as “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – draws both from the early Christian tradition of letter writing (often from jails) and the African American preaching tradition. Following Paul’s strategy of writing epistles while incarcerated for his beliefs (the origin of several books in the New Testament), Dr. King reaches out to his fellow brethren of the clergy, appealing to them on the basis of their shared faith. At the same time, Dr. King draws on the rich oratory of the black church. While this letter was printed in a variety of publications and was therefore meant to be read, it bears reading aloud to hear the cadence of the prose. Dr. King acknowledges his debt to many thinkers before him, among them Socrates, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Thomas Jefferson, T.S. Eliot, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich. A particular influence here and throughout the entire civil rights movement is Henry David Thoreau. When he addresses unjust laws and the responsibility of people of good conscience to protest such laws, Dr. King echoes Thoreau’s essay “Resistance to Civil Government.” This essay, also known as “Civil Disobedience,” was composed after Thoreau spent one night in the Concord, Massachusetts, jail for failure to pay a poll tax. The tax would have gone, in part, to support the Mexican-American War, which Thoreau and other abolitionists believed was being waged to expand the practice of slavery in the United States. Thoreau was an ardent supporter of the abolitionist cause. In fact, his cabin at Walden Pond was sometimes used as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Thoreau welcomed runaway slaves at his cabin during the day and took them to safe houses in Concord at night. Dr. King looked to Thoreau, among others, for inspiration for his theory of nonviolent direct action, a practice he outlines and defends in “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” So closely linked are Thoreau’s essay and Dr. King’s letter that they have even been published together. Dr. King wrote in his autobiography: During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau’s essay “On Civil Disobedience” for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander’s refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery’s territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times. I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement. . . . Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau’s insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice. King’s major claim in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – that white moderates are standing idly by, telling black civil rights activists to “wait” – is a message that resonates today. In the wake of the Ferguson uprising and in the energy of #BlackLivesMatter, many in the white community have remained silent, and indeed many – both white and black civil rights leaders of an older generation – have criticized young activists for their seemingly aggressive, in-your-face protests. I can imagine Dr. King pushing back and telling the older whites and blacks, “’Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’” Dr. King had been criticized by the white Birmingham clergy and by many others as being “extreme.” He willingly accepted this label, aligning himself with Jesus and other great reformers who King said could be seen as extremists. “[T]he question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be,” writes Dr. King. “Will we be extremists for hate or for love?” In one of the letter’s most powerful passages, Dr. King explains why African Americans cannot “wait.” The passage contains an extraordinary sentence, exceptional not only in its length but also in the power of its message and argument. Dr. King writes, We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" – then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. You’ll find it moving and inspiring to read Dr. King’s letter. You can do so online at the University of Pennsylvania’s African Studies Center website. If you want to add Dr. King’s works to your library, consider buying A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches. Two book-length considerations of Dr. King’s letter are also available: Jonathan Rieder’s Gospel of Freedom: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation and Jonathan Bass’s Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Visit thestoryweb.com/letter for links to all these resources and to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., read “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Wendy Wilson Fall and Teresa Vega will share the history and origin of Malagasy Roots and how DNA testing can help identify your Malagasy ancestry. Wendy Wilson Fall is Associate Professor and Program Chair of the Africana Studies Program at Lafayette College.  Wilson-Fall has a PhD from Howard University’s African Studies Center, with a concentration in Social Anthropology. Her research engages questions of socio-cultural change and ethnic identity. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on these themes, including work from her field research in West Africa as well as her work in the U.S. on African American family narratives. At Lafayette College she and colleagues have built  an interactive website using GIS visualization to explore the early demographics of families claiming Malagasy ancestry at http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/madagascar.  Her book, Memories of Madagascar and the Black Atlantic was released in October, 2015 by Ohio University Press.  Teresa Vega's background in cultural anthropology helped her to research her ancestral roots. She began blogging to document the genealogy research she had been doing over the past several years. She is a proud member of both the NJ and NY Chapters of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAGHS) and the Facebook Group African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research. Since 2014,Teresa is the co-administrator of FTDNA's Malagasy Roots Project with CeCe Moore and a descendant of Malagasy enslaved people going back to the late 1600s and early 1700s from New York and Virginia.   

M. L “Inus” Daneel and Graham Hill discuss the growth, dynamism, challenges, and contextualization of African Initiated Churches (AICs) and African Earthkeeping Movements.M. L. “Inus” Daneel is a professor of missiology at the Boston University School of Theology. Dr. Daneel has developed contextualized ecumenical ministries in theological education, community development, and earthkeeping for and with the African Initiated Churchs in Zimbabwe.He served for 16 years as senior professor in missiology at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. His widely acclaimed publications focus mainly on African Traditional Religion and indigenous African Christianity. His book Guerilla Snuff was selected one of the 75 Best Zimbabwean books of the twentieth century.Dr. Daneel was employed as a senior research officer at both the Free University of Amsterdam and the African Studies Center, Leiden. He has held research fellowships at the University of Zimbabwe, Harare; the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University; and the African Studies Center at Boston University. Daneel has lectured widely in Europe, North and South America, and Africa. With Dana L. Robert, he edits the book series “African Initiatives in Christian Mission.”Dr. Daneel’s publications include God of the Matopo Hills (1970), Zionism and Faith-healing (1970), Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches, Vols. 1-3 (1971, 1976, 1988), Quest for Belonging (1987), Fambidzano–Ecumenical Movement of Zimbabwean Independent Churches (1989), Christian Theology of Africa (1989), Guerrilla Snuff (a novel, 1995), African Earthkeepers: Interfaith Mission in Earth Care, Vols. 1-2 (1998, 2000), African Christian Outreach, Vol. 1 (2001), and Fullness of Life for All (co-editor, 2003).Over the past few years, Prof. Daneel has been conducting field-based research into the high god religion of the Shona. This research follows up studies done in the 1960s in which Daneel was the first outsider to be admitted to the high god oracle in the Matopo Hills.Born on a Dutch Reformed mission station, Dr. Daneel is a well-known ecumenical figure who functions as a bishop in an African-Initiated Church, the Ndaza (Holy Cord) Zionists. A patron of the Network of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa, he is committed to environmental preservation, African contextual theology, fishing, and watching rugby and cricket. Daneel spends six months a year in Masvingo, Zimbabwe, and six months a year in Boston.

Listen to this special edition of the Pan-African Journal hosted by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. In this broadcast we present our regular PANW reports with dispatches on the commemorations of the 104th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party in the Republic of South Africa; a date for the run-off elections in the Central African Republic has been set for Jan. 31 with two former prime ministers facing each other amid the withdrawal of Congolese troops from the UN peacekeeping force in light of allegations of misconduct; more attention is being given to the federal investigation in the United States into the poisoning of the water resources by the right-wing governor in the state of Michigan; and the Chicago police have been cited again in a killing which has come under national scrutiny. In the second hour we continue our commemoration of the 87th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looking at various aspects of his social legacy. Also in this same hour we look back at the contributions of South African Communist Party leader Joe Slovo who passed away 21 years ago on Jan. 7, 1995 in the aftermath of the ANC's ascendancy to power in 1994. Finally, we reexamine the apparent murder of former United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961 during the Congo crisis through a lecture delivered by Susan Williams of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of Oxford's African Studies Center lecture series

Note: This episode was recorded last year and is missing some content. It has been uploaded as the podcast is relaunching. No discussion of China-Zambia relations would be complete without examining the TAZARA railway, the Chinese foreign aid project designed to eliminate landlocked Zambia's economic dependence on Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. Host Winslow Robertson asks Prof. Jamie Monson, Director of the Michigan State University's (famed) African Studies Center. Prof. Monson is author of the definitive TAZARA history text "Africa's Freedom Railway.

Professor Adams Bodomo, University of Vienna, delivered the Coleman Memorial Lecture held annually in honor and memory of James S. Coleman, a pioneer in the field of African Studies and the founder of the African Studies Center.

For over two years, my non-profit has trained counselors in Rwanda in narrative psychology, for the sake of Rwanda's newest generation.  So far we have collected and publicly archived 100 intergenerational dialogues between young adults and their elders, and our evaluations suggest this has been very positive for both generations, as a spur toward reconciliation, and healing.  We will discuss the Questions young people in Rwanda are asking about the post, and the answers from their elders in a dialogue project.    Patricia Pasick is a clinical and family psychologist, and the Director of Stories For Hope Rwanda, an international  non-profit she began in 2008, for the sake of Rwanda's newest adult generation.  She's the author of a book for parents about how to support their children as they leave home,  and publishes on the  topic of untold stories, her specialty as a narrative psychologist.  Dr. Pasick lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was educated at both Harvard University, and the University of Michigan.  In 2010 she was the recipient of a humanitarian service award from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and has been awarded several grants for her project, one from Psychology Beyond Borders; another from the African Studies Center, at the University of Michigan. For more information on Stories For Hope,  Patricia Pasick and Global Giving

Mahmood Mamdani, Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia University Ali Mazrui, Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at the State University of New York at Binghamton Timothy Longman, Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science and Director, African Studies Center, Boston University Dr. J. Paul Martin, Director, Human Rights Studies, Barnard College Dr. Scott Newton, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, UK Colleen Driscoll, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Quinnipiac University Moderator: Kenneth Harrow, Distinguished Professor of African Studies, Michigan State University

Jennifer Yanco, Ph.D., a research fellow for the African Studies Center at Boston University, spoke on "Social and Political Determinants of Health: The Costs of Racism" on Sept. 9, 2008 as part of the UNE's Diversity Lecture Series.

Jennifer Yanco is a research fellow at the African Studies Center at Boston University. Her current work developing anti-racism curricula for schools stems from the conviction that, of all the determinants of health, racism continues to have the most devastating, widespread, and long-term effects, making it the most serious public health issue facing us. Ms. Yanco is also the founder of the “White People Challenging Racism” classes at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and serves widely as an anti-racist activist and diversity consultant.

Jennifer Yanco, Ph.D., a research fellow for the African Studies Center at Boston University, spoke on "Understanding White Privilege" on Sept. 8, 2008 as part of the UNE's Diversity Lecture Series.

Jennifer Yanco, Ph.D., a research fellow for the African Studies Center at Boston University, spoke on "Understanding White Privilege" on Sept. 8, 2008 as part of the UNE's Diversity Lecture Series.