Symposium Schedule

Thursday, March 28, 2019, 8:00am-9:00pm
Rutgers College Avenue Campus, Teleconference Room, Alexander Library

8:00am-9:00am Registration and Breakfast

9:00am-9:30am Welcome and Opening Remarks
Convenors: Ousseina Alidou and Renée Larrier
Director, Center for African Studies: Genese Sodikoff
AMESALL Chair: Charles Häberl
SAS Executive Vice Dean: James Masschaele
Rutgers Global: Rick Garfunkel and Rick Lee

9:30am-11:15am Panel 1

Global Africa, Material Cultures, and the Arts of Being
Moderator: François Cornilliat
Ouafaa Deleger: The Piano as a Cultural Passage: Le Piano Oriental, Z. Abirached
Roger Noguerol Ramírez: El Cajon as a Symbol of Resistance
Jonathan Bishop Highfield: Riding the Indian Ocean's Waves
Displacement of People and Movement of Food across Four Continents

11:15am-11:30am Coffee Break

Cacophonous cognates: Poetry Performance by Thato Magano

11:30am-12:45pm Keynote Address

Introduction: Renée Larrier
Manthia Diawara: Global African Studies: Some Thoughts from Édouard Glissant

12:45pm-1:30pm Lunch

1:30pm-3:15pm Panel 2

Global Africa, Hip Hop Cultures, and Sonic Agency
Moderator: Tadjou-N'Dine Mamadou Yacoubou
RaShelle R. Peck: Global Blackness in Underground Nairobi Hip Hop
Tosin Gbogi: Postcolonial Resistance, Transethnic Vernaculars, and New Youth Identities in African Hip Hop Cultures
Eric Charry: Hip Hop Africanized

3:15pm-4:15pm In Honor of Kassahun Checole and Africa World Press

Conversation with Christopher Wise on The Manuscript of Timbuktu
Moderators: Bode Ibironke and Carolyn Brown

4:15pm-4:30pm Coffee Break

4:30pm-6:15pm Panel 3

Global Africa, Decolonial Praxis, and the Literary Imagination
Moderator: Paulina Maria Barrios
Simone Brioni: Collaboration as a Decolonial Practice
Christopher Wise: Yambo Ouologuem's Le devoir de violence at 50
Amir Mohamed Aziz: Towards a Queer Decoloniality: (Trans)Gender Epistemologies, the Invention of Binary Sex/Gender, and the Coloniality of White Gender

6:30pm-7:30pm Reception

Welcoming Remarks: Dean of Humanities, Michelle Stephens

7:30pm-9:00pm Film Screening and Conversation

An Opera of The World by Manthia Diawara
Introduction: Genese Sodikoff, CAS Director

An Opera of The World
Manthia Diawara, Director
University Professor, Film Director and Producer, Writer
New York University, Tisch School for the Arts

Manthia Diawara writes: “My film, An Opera of the World (2017), is...a kind of tribute to Lamko’s libretto, through which I freely interpret the themes in my film. I have taken some of the key characters in Bintou Were, a Sahel Opera, whose performances aim to mirror the drama of the current migration crises in the world... My second goal with An Opera of the World was to build a meeting point between the genre of opera and the medium of film and see what new meanings emerge out of that porosity of borders, transgression of frontiers between Africa and the rest of the world. I wanted to ask if film can be the new opera medium par excellence: because of the easy access the masses have to it, and because it is the perfect vessel for carrying several contradictory emotions at the same time.”

Friday, March 29, 2019, 8:00am-9:30pm
Rutgers College Avenue Campus, Teleconference Room, Alexander Library

8:00am-9:00am Registration and Breakfast

9:00am-10:45am Panel 4
Global Africa, Migrations, and the Ethics of Conversation
Moderator: Ousseina Alidou
Diya Abdo: Every Campus A Refuge: Reimagining the University in a Time of Crisis
Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà: Embracing/Embodying Glo-cal-ity: New African Diaspora Artists' Aesthetics and Transnational Conversations
Lisa Yung and Ricardo Larémont: Afro-Asian Intersections and Migration

10:45am-11:00am Coffee Break

11:00am-12:45pm Panel 5
Global Africa, Women’s Bio-Graphics, and the Practice of Diaspora
Moderator: Chioma Nwankwo
Alexandria Smith: Roaring Inside the Marble: Queer Diaspora in Akwaeke Emezi’s Freshwater
Marame Gueye: A Woman is Another Woman’s Cure: African Women, Immigration, and Digital Sisterhood
Gabriel Bámgbósé: The Self in Poetic Language: Poetics of Hapticality in Abena Busia’s Traces of a Life

12:45pm-1:45pm Lunch
South African Writer, Sisonke Msimang
Reading from Always Mother Country: A Memoir of Exile and Home
Moderator: Stéphane Robolin

1:45pm-3:30pm Panel 6
Global Africa, Aesthetic Mobility, and Digital Cultures
Moderator: Federica Soddu
Reginold Royston: Podcasting and Orality in African Digital Aesthetics
Susanna Sacks: The Aesthetics of Agency: International Art Festivals and the Limits of the Cosmopolitan Imagination
Clovis Bergère: Clever Improvisations, Hashtags and Choreographies of Protest in Guinea

3:30pm-4:15pm Mother and Daughter as African Artists
Conversation between Adérónké Adésolá Adésànyà and Tosin Adésànyà-Olaleye
Moderator: Donna Gustafson

4:15pm-4:30pm Coffee Break

4:30pm-6:30pm Panel 7
Global Africa, Critical Blackness, and the Wakanda Imaginary
Moderator: Jordan Steiner
Wendy Wilson-Fall: Practical Pan-Africanism: Global Musics, Mobility, and Blackness
andré carrington: Watching Wakanda: Desiring Blackness in Marvel’s Black Panther, From Page to Screen
Jonathon Repinecz: From Négritude to Wakanda: Toward A Critical Genealogy
Ron Mulvihill: Maasai Remix

7:00pm-9:30pm Concluding Remarks and Celebration – ZIMMERLI MUSEUM
Department of French Tribute to Professor Renée Larrier
Moderator: Professor Mary Shaw with Professor Myriam Alami, Professor Medha Karmarkar, Georgette Mitchell, Doctoral Student
Bloustein School of Public Health Tribute to Professor Meredeth Turshen: Professor Francis Barchi
Tribute to Professor Kassahun Checole: H.E. Ambassador Professor Abena Busia
Tribute to Professor Manthia Diawara, NYU Tisch School of the Arts: Professor Ousseina Alidou

Performance by Students, Faculty, and NJ Community
Play, Poetry, Music, Dance, Tributes, Performance, Africa World Press Exhibition, and more at the Zimmerli Museum

Artists/Performers/Poets:

Ahmed Butt Ala Jitan Alexis Haynie Amir Aziz Mohamed Antu Yacob Diya Abdo Etienne Labbouz Gabriel Bámgbósé

Hyo-Won Nakashio Itzel Corona Aguilar Jacob G Price Nyuma Waggeh Tadjou-N'Dine Mamadou Yacoubou Thato Magano Tosin Gbogi

Saturday, March 30, 2019, 9:00am-3:00pm
Rutgers Academic Building (AB)
15 Seminary Place, Room 2150, College Avenue Campus
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

K-12 Teachers Workshop
Global Africa, Migration, Foodways, and Storytelling
Teaching Global Africa Through its Foodways: From the Farm to the Table!

AMESALL-School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS)-BUSINESS SCHOOL and The Center for African Studies (CAS)

Co-convenors: Professor Renée Larrier (French), Professor Ousseina Alidou (AMESALL), Professor Genese Sodikoff (Director, Center for African Studies), Professor Jim Simon (SEBS), Professor Albert Ayeni (SEBS), Professor Mark Robson (SEBS), Professor Kevin Lyons (Business School), Emily Merchant (SEBS), and Dr. Olufunmilola (Funmi) Ibironke (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute)

Workshop Facilitator: Professor Albert Ayeni

Description of Workshop: The intercollegiate symposium Global Africa, Migration and The Arts is followed by a one-day outreach, K-12 TEACHERS WORKSHOP: TEACHING GLOBAL AFRICA THROUGH ITS FOODWAYS: FROM THE FARM TO THE TABLE! in collaboration with The School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) and the Business School. The aim of the Teachers workshop is to reinforce Rutgers Center for African Studies's outreach mission to the wider public by raising awareness of the great contributions of Africa and the African Diaspora to world civilizations through their rich cultural heritage and entrepreneurship strategies. This goal will be illustrated in this Teachers Workshop by thematically focusing on Global Africa, Migrations, Foodways and Storytelling. Through the series of pedagogic activities, we hope to have a dialogue with the teachers on the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to curriculum development and invite them to reflect on how to include Global African foodways and stories into the K-12 Curriculum on STEM/STEAM, Global Social Studies and the Humanities, Science and Entrepreneurship. K-12 Teachers who participate in the workshop will meet the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) in English Language Arts (ELA) and Social Studies, and the mandate of the New Jersey Amistad legislation. They will also receive a certificate of attendance.

What to Expect: This workshop aims to prepare K-12 teachers in New Jersey to teach about Africa's contribution to global health through its foodways. Led by expert Dr. Albert Ayeni, this workshop has four specific goals:

To explore:

1. How food systems work (from production to consumption).
2. The role of food in social life (weddings, festivals, etc.).
3. The connections between nutritious food, health, and productive life.
4. The ethnic crops, culinary arts, and entrepreneurship of African immigrant populations in New Jersey.

Workshop has these broad goals:

• To equip educators with practical strategies and resources for integrating Africa and its diaspora in their schools and classrooms
• To provide a forum and a network of K-12 educators and scholars in the New Jersey area engaged in bringing Africa and its diaspora into the school curriculum.

This workshop is suitable for teachers of social studies, science, health and nutrition, geography, literature, music, language, and art. It will provide teachers with resource materials for curriculum design. Teachers will also earn professional development credit and their participation will enable them to meet the Core Curriculum Content Standards (CCCS) in English Language Arts (ELA) and Social Studies, and the mandate of the New Jersey Amistad legislation.

What Do Teachers Get?
Expert-led sessions on Africa and African foodways
Breakfast and lunch
Lesson plans and other curricular materials
Lists of useful websites that provide lesson plans for different grade levels
Certificate of completion for participation

Program
9:00am-9:30am Welcome Address and Breakfast
9:30am-12:00pm Session I: Lectures and Presentations
12:00pm-12:30pm Lunch
12:30pm-1:00pm Exhibition on African American Foodways at Alexander Library
1:00pm-3:00pm Session II: Presentations and Break-out Sessions
3:00pm-3:30pm