Reaching Back Looking Forward: 50 Years of Independence in Portuguese-Speaking Africa

Antonio Tomas

• António Tomás is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of California-Irvine and anexpert on Angola and southern Africa. His current project focuses on the entwined wars ofAngola, Namibia, and South Africa.

Benedito Machava: 

• Benedito Machava is a Assistant Professor of African History at Yale University. He works on colonial and independent African history, particularly on the period and process of decolonization in Mozambique.

Boima Tucker: 

• Boima Tucker is a music producer, a DJ, and a cultural activist and critic. He is the ManagingEditor of the blog Africa is a Country, co-founder of the Kondi Band, and the founder of the record label INTL BLK. He graduated from UW-Madison in 2003 and after living in many places around the US and the world, he is currently living in Milwaukee.

Conceição Lima

• Conceição Lima is a journalist, poet, and writer from São Tomé and a founder of the NationalUnion of Saotomean Writers and Artists. She worked for many years as a journalist for the BBCPortuguese language service and has an MA in African Studies and Sub-Saharan African Politicsand Government from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She is the mosttranslated Saotomean writer and her works have been published in German, Arab, Spanish,Turkish, Gallegan, Serbo-Croatian, French, and Italian.

Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali

• Professor Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali is an Associate Professor of African History at Howard University.  He is a Specialist of Central African History, and has published a two-volume study in Portuguese on Angola’s Anti-colonial liberation movement. He also published a book in French on national identity and Political Transitions in Africa which provides a comparative analysis of the emergence of national identity in Congo-Brazzaville and Angola. His book Guerrilhas e lutas sociais: O MPLA perante si próprio, 1960-1977: Ensaio de História Política is a newest and expanded version of his book Dissidências e poder de estado.

Kalaf Epalanga

• Kalaf Epalanga is an Angolan writer, musician, and producer. His ban Buraka Som Sistema tookthe electronic music world by storm in the early 2000s. His 2017 novel Também Os BrancosSabem Dançar was published in English in 2023. The blog Brittle Paper listed it on its top 100notable books by African writers in 2023.

Paula Nascimento

• Paula Nascimento is an Angolan architect and curator. She curated the Golden Lion winningAngolan pavilion Luanda: Encyclopedic City at the Venice Biennial in 2013. She has curated thework of contemporary artists from the Portuguese-speaking African countries like Rene Tavares, Yonamine, Edson Chagas, Mónica de Miranda, and Januario Jano, among many others.

Rogério Manjate

• Rogério Manjate is an actor, theater director, and filmmaker from Mozambique, and the author of poetry and fiction. To date, he has published the short story collections Amor Silvestre (2002), O coelho que fugiu da história (2010), and Wazi (2011), in addition to the poetry collections Casa em Flor (2004) and Cicatriz encarnada (2017). Cicatriz encarnada was a finalist for the Glória de Sant’Anna Prize. Manjate has also produced documentary films and one award-winning short film, I Love You.

Sonia Vaz Borges

• Sonia Vaz Borges is an Assistant Professor of History and Africana Studies at Drexel University.She is known for her work on the liberation movement leader Amilcar Cabral and, in particular,his revolutionary approach to pedagogy.

Lucrecia Paco

• Lucrecia Paco is Mozambican actor and theatre founder. Born in the late colonial period, she became an actor after independence in the theatre groups that sprung up in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. In the mid’1980s she helped found the theatre group Mutumbela Gogo, Mozambique’s first professional troupe.

The Sounds of Liberation Dance Party: DJ Boima Tucker 

• February 1st
• 6:00-9:00pm
• BCC Classroom 716 Langdon St, Madison, WI 53703

February 13-April 10: Movies of Liberation Film Fest 

Films

• Feb. 4 – Sambizanga (Angola, 1972) – Wisconsin Idea Room, Education Building
• Feb. 15 – Our Lady of the Chinese Shop( Angola, 2022) – UW Cinematheque
• Feb. 22 – Air Conditioner (Angola, 2020) – UW Cinematheque
• March 4 – The Night Still Smells of Gunpowder (Mozambique, 2024) – Wisconsin Idea Room, Education Building
• March 18 – Mortu Nega (Cape Verde & Guinea Bissau, 1988) – Wisconsin Idea Room, Education Building

Festival of Ideas – 50 Years of Independence in Lusophone Africa

• April 25 & 26
• H.F. DeLuca Forum, Discovery Bldg., 330 N. Orchard Street, Madison, WI 53715

RSVP for the conference here

Hosts

Marissa Moorman

Professor, African Studies Program Faculty Director

Luís Madureira

Professor; Chair

Co-Sponsors 

• University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Political Science
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Art
• Regional and International Studies National Resource Center (IRIS NRC)
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Spanish and Portuguese
• University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Sociology