2017 looks like its going to be a great year with the African Studies Program. We hope you will join us!
More than 10 Africa at Noon seminars are already scheduled:
We’re kicking off 2017’s Africa at Noon series with UW African Cultural Studies professor Matthew Brown. Join us Wednesday, January 18, 2017 at 12pm in 206 Ingraham. Professor Brown’s talk is entitled “Motion Pictures, Indirect Rule, and Periliberalism in Nigeria.”
Other speakers coming soon: Adam Talib, Assistant Professor of Classical Arabic Literature,
American University in Cairo; Reginold Royston, UW Anna Julia Cooper Fellow and assistant professor beginning in 2017; Névine El Nossery, UW Associate Professor of French and Associate Professor of African Cultural Studies; Ainehe Edoro, Assistant Professor of Global Anglophone Literature at Marquette, and creator of the blog BrittlePaper.com – An African Literary Experience; and many more!
1 special event with Sean Jacobs, founder and editor of Africa is a Country:
Wednesday, March 15, we are excited to welcome the founder and editor of Africa is a Country, Sean Jacobs. Sean Jacobs is also an assistant professor of International Affairs, Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at the New School.
Africa is a Country is a “(g)roup blog about media, politics, music, opinion, events and football. Many nations, one extraordinary country.” Learn more about Africa is a Country>>
Details will be forthcoming.
4 academic grants, fellowships, and awards:
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS)- These fellowships are for both graduate and undergraduates to study Africa and African languages. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the FLAS fellowships are intended to develop a cadre of linguistically competent specialists in the study of Africa in a range of disciplines. FLAS fellowships cover tuition and provide a stipend for the academic year or summer. Read More>
- Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowships: SKJ Fellowships support UW-Madison graduate students working on social justice issues through pre-dissertation research and international internship fellowships. Applications for Summer 2016 awards are due February 22, 2016. Read more>
- Jordan Prize. Since 1969, the African Studies Program has awarded the A.C. Jordan Prize to a UW-Madison graduate student for the year’s best paper on Africa. To be considered for the prize, a paper must be nominated and submitted to the African Studies Program by a UW-Madison faculty member. Read More>
- Graduate Student Summer Fieldwork Award: The purpose of these $3,000 awards is to support graduate students at the UW-Madison planning to conduct 6-8 weeks of summer fieldwork outside of the United States. Any continuing graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may apply for these awards. Read more>
1 DAY IN AFRICA event:
This spring, DAY IN AFRICA returns with the theme “Popular Culture in Africa.” DAY IN AFRICA welcomes high school juniors and seniors from across Wisconsin to explore the languages and cultures of Africa in a variety of sessions led by UW-Madison faculty, students, and staff.
DAY IN AFRICA 2017 will feature a variety of sessions where we will explore everything from how popular media such as music, dance, movies, literature, and visual arts animate discussions of social issues in Africa; the role of popular culture in politics; and what young people in different parts of the continent do for entertainment and fun. This year’s DAY IN AFRICA event will be held on Monday April 24, 2017 at UW-Madison’s Union South. See photos from DAY IN AFRICA 2016. Learn more>>
1 Pleasure and the Pleasurable Conference:
April 13-15, 2017, African Cultural Studies and African Studies Program will be hosting a conference on Pleasure and the Pleasurable in Africa and the African Diaspora.
The conference promises to be a lively interrogation of an uncommon theme in the scholarly study of Africa and the African diaspora: pleasure. The uncommonness is not surprising, given the constituent elements of the modern history of the African world in the last five centuries – slavery, colonialism, and the continuing challenges of postemancipation, civil rights and post-independence.
Responding to this large historical canvas, the fields of African and African diaspora studies have, in large part, been dedicated to matters of the serious, the grave, the self-sacrificing, the resistant, and, indeed, the tragic; together, these represent the dominant composite accent of scholarly African and African diaspora studies.
This conference proposes an expansion of focus and the breath of fresh air that brings. The goal is to devote the year to rethinking pleasure in/and Africa and the African Diaspora in all its dimensions—historical, social, psychological, philosophical, political macro and micro, aesthetic, secular, religious, visual, auditory, tactile, etc.
Watch for more details as we enter 2017, and Happy New Year!