The African Studies Program is thrilled to welcome special guest Sean Jacobs to campus.
Jacobs is the founder and editor of Africa is a Country, a site of media criticism, analysis, and new writing. He founded the site in 2009 as “an outlet to challenge the received wisdom on Africa from a left perspective.”
A native of Cape Town, South Africa, Jacobs uses his experiences with resistance movements to Apartheid to inform his approach to editing and research. He is an associate professor of international affairs at The New School, where his research revolves around the interaction of politics and popular culture. He has published widely in academic settings as well as in popular and mainstream media publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian and Die Volkskrant.
While visiting the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jacobs will join Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn of the Sinica Podcast to record a live episode on China and Africa’s evolving relationship. Following the recording, listeners can join the speakers for a Q&A session over pizza. For more details, see the event page.
In addition, Jacobs will be giving the African Studies Program’s weekly Africa at Noon lecture, entitled “What About Decolonization?” In the lecture, he will analyze recent political protests in South Africa and what they mean for scholarship around African Studies.