January 31st
Smoldering Embers: Negative Peace, Memory of Home, and Environmental Conflict in Mt. Elgon
Location: Goodman South Library, 2222 South Park St., Madison, WI 53713
Dr. Kevin Wamalwa
Anthropology and African Cultural Studies, UW-Madison
Talk Description
From 2005 to 2008, Mt. Elgon, Kenya, experienced the most brutal ethnic land-related conflict in its history, involving murders, disappearances, torture, and sexual assault. My ethnographic study of these violent events highlights the sociopolitical conditions that sustain instability in Mt. Elgon, the possibility of future conflicts, and how these continue to affect the lives of people in the region. I argue that despite the ongoing peacebuilding efforts, only a “negative peace” has prevailed in Mt. Elgon, where the dilemmas of (un)belonging, undressed injustices, and environmental and land crises still put the community on the brink of further conflict.
Speaker’s Bio
Kevin Wamalwa is an Anthropologist and African Cultural Studies scholar who studies resource-based conflict and post-violence memory in Kenya. His current work on embodied memories of violence explores situated understandings of victimhood and villainy in Mt. Elgon, Kenya. Kevin also holds an MA in African Languages and Literature from UW-Madison, focusing on Swahili utopian literature. His academic publications include “The Problem of (un)Belonging” (2021) and “Students’ Reparticularization of Chinese Language and Culture” (Co-othered with Amy Stambach, 2018). Kevin is also a published poet and story writer with works including Miale ya Ushairi (2015), a poetry study guide for high school and middle-level colleges; a short story, “Nimerudi Tena” (I have Returned) in Kunani Marekani? (What is there in America? 2015, Iribemwangi, ed.). As a believer in education for all, Kevin founded the Deserv-Ed initiative, which supports needy high school and college students in Kenya to complete their education. Kevin is the current African Studies Fellow teaching the new African and Global Black Studies Course at Madison College.
February 28th
The Unholy Trinity: Immigrating while Black and African
Location: The Atrium at the Village on Park, 2300 South Park St., Madison, WI 53713
Harry Kiiru
Department of African Cultural Studies, UW-Madison
Talk Description
African migration to the United States has grown significantly in the last several decades, bringing to the fore a number of interrelated socio-historical, cultural, and political processes. Although fairly small, in comparison to other migrant groups who have longer histories and trajectories in the U.S., this growth in African migration has seen a related increase in migrant literature, films, music, art, and other forms of cultural production. In considering this population growth and its corresponding cultural production realities, this talk will investigate two overlapping questions: What does it mean to migrate while Black, and while African in African migrant literature?
Speaker’s Bio
Harry Kiiru is a PhD candidate in the Department of African Cultural Studies with a minor in African American Studies. His dissertation titled The Culturally and Racially Body in Motion: How Sub-Saharan African Immigrants Become Black in the United States, is a study of the new African diaspora’s racialization processes of incorporation into the ethno-racial hierarchal order within the United States and how they negotiate this identity. The study begins with the 1959-63 East African Students’ Airlift which saw almost eight hundred students attend schools in the U.S. and Canada. The Airlift as a concrete historical moment allows me to construct a periodization that runs from the 1950s to the present. Methodologically, he employs a mixed-method approach, incorporating archival research, African migrant literature and filmic analysis, and self-ethnography.
April 24th
Nigerian Women’s Rhetoric of Sexual Pleasure and Power Online
Location: The Atrium at the Village on Park, 2300 South Park St., Madison, WI 53713
Oluwayinka Arawomo
Department of English, UW-Madison
Talk Description
How do Nigerian women make sense of sex when silence is a cultural and discursive norm? How is the digital media both an alternative and ambivalent space for these women to disrupt silence and critically engage dominant sexual discourses? This talk addresses these salient questions through examining Nigerian women’s sexual discourses online and how their rhetorical practice of dialoguing not only enables knowledge and meaning making, but also articulates the possibilities and experiences of sexual pleasure and power for Nigerian women even in restrictive contexts.
Speaker’s Bio
Oluwayinka Arawomo is currently a 6th year PhD candidate in the Department of English (Composition and Rhetoric program) at UW-Madison. She is the Vice President of the Oline Writing Centers Association (OWCA). She is the past TA Assistant Director of UW-Madison’s Writing Center. Her research interests include digital writing and rhetoric, Nigerian women’s discourses in digital spaces, and African feminism. Her current research project investigates digital media as alternative and ambivalent spaces for Nigerian women’s rhetoric of sexual pleasure and power. She has taught first year composition for four years and supported her students in the writing classroom and one-to-one tutoring in the Writing Center.
September 25th
The Arts of African Popular Musics
Location: Room 402 – Black Business Hub, 2352 South Park St., Madison, WI 53713
Michael Oshindoro
Department of African Cultural Studies, UW-Madison
Talk Description
Popular music is not mere lyrics, rhythm, and beat. Our encounter with music is also an encounter with images. In this talk, we will examine how African popular musicians use images to assert themselves as the best in the game.
Speaker’s Bio
Michael Oshindoro is a PhD candidate in African cultural studies at UW-Madison. He studies African visual arts and media including animation, comics, and special effects.
October 30th
Colonial-Era Air Quality Legacies in Kampala, Uganda
Location: Evjue Room A&B – Urban League of Greater Madison, 2222 S Park St STE 200, Madison, WI 53713
Dorothy Lsoto
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, UW-Madison
Talk Description
In Kampala, Uganda, British colonial urban planners created segregated neighborhoods for Europeans, Asians, and Africans, under the colonial public health guidance. Today neighborhoods originally designated for African residents have higher levels of air pollution than those for Europeans and Asians, even after accounting for factors like road traffic and fuel use.
Speaker’s Bio
Dorothy Lsotho is a Ph.D. student studying the persistent colonial city design of Kampala, Uganda, and air pollution inequalities using low-cost air quality sensors. She also works with research groups and policymakers to design targeted air pollution management policies in East Africa. She believes that breathing clean air is the most basic and important human right, and her goal is to see everyone achieve that human right.
December 4th
Political Polarization, Fact-Checking, and Misinformation in Ghana
Location: Evjue Room A&B – Urban League of Greater Madison, 2222 S Park St STE 200, Madison, WI 53713
Eric Boansi Agyekum
School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UW-Madison
Talk Description
Recent presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana show that the country is increasingly becoming politically polarized. Beyond politics, there are other lines of division such as ethnicity, religion, cultural and territorial differences. Dis/misinformation thrives in countries with deep ideological and political differences. In this talk, I explore the complex interrelationship between political polarization, misinformation, journalism practice, and fact-checking.
Speaker’s Bio
Eric Boansi Agyekum is a PhD student at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UW-Madison. His research interest lies in fact-checking, media representation, and misinformation. Before joining UW-Madison, he was a lecturer in the Journalism and Media Studies Faculty at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He has extensive knowledge in media and communication from both academia and industry, having worked in journalism and advertising before joining GIJ.