Events African Studies Program Indiana University Summer 2008 Sheasby Matiure and the Mbira Queens performed Honorary degree awarded to for the President and invited guests during the Liberian President highlights reception. IU President Michael A. McRobbie said the connections with IU university selected Sirleaf to receive the honorary When Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf degree in recognition of her efforts to promote received an honorary degree this month from peace, justice and democracy, and of the close Indiana University-Bloomington, it marked a high relationship between Liberia and the university. Dr. point in a long-term relationship between IU and J. Gus Liebenow, founder of the IU African Studies this West African nation. Sirleaf, the first woman Program, was a pioneer in the academic study of elected president of an African country, received her Liberia. IU faculty have continued research on honorary degree on May 3, 2008 at commencement Liberia since then and institutional partnerships have attended by most of IU-Bloomington's 7,000 been developed in recent years. graduates, their families, and university faculty and dig- nitaries. During her visit, Sir- leaf spoke to faculty, students and administra- tors at the Lilly Library and took questions from the audience. At a May 3 reception attended by IU students, officials, and representatives of the Liberian diaspora from across the Mid- west, President Sirleaf talked about the progress and challenges of re- building Liberia. IU faculty member Dr. Amos Sawyer greets Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at IU Reception 1 African Studies Program ◊ Indiana University Summer 2008 Wednesday Speaker Series & Seminars Fall 2008 Spring 2008 Maria Grosz-Ngaté (African Studies) offered Marion Frank-Wilson (Library) and Ruth the Fall 2006 interdisciplinary African Studies Stone (Ethnomusicology) taught the Spring 2008 graduate seminar on the theme, “Contemporary seminar with a focus on “Fieldnotes in African Africa in the Classroom: New Perspectives on the Research.” Africa Volume.” Public lectures included: Steven Raymer (IU Guest lectures open to the public included: Journalism) “The Documentary Photographer: James Delehanty (University of Wisconsin) Writing with Light”; Peter M. Chilson (English and “Mapping Contemporary Africa”; John Aden Creative Writing, Washington State University) (Wabash College) “Roots and Branches: Historical “Romancing the Archivist: A Cautionary Dispatch Overview to 1870”; Takyiwaa Manuh (University from West Africa”; Kate Schroeder (IU of Ghana) “Empowering Women? Passing History/Library) and Austin Okigbo (IU Domestic Violence Legislation in Ghana”; Tracy Ethnomusicology) “Recent Experiences with Luedke (Northeastern Illinois University) “Health Fieldnotes”; Daniel Reed (IU Ethnomusicology) and Society”; Stephen Ndegwa (World Bank) “Fieldnotes: For Whom and What For?”; Anaba "Development Issues"; Karen T. Hansen Anankyela Alemna, (Library and Library Science, (Northwestern University) “Urbanism as African University of Ghana) “Field Notes and the Library”; Ways of Life: Thematics for an Exploration of Selwa El-Shawan Castello Branco, Changing Urban Livelihoods in the Time of (Ethnomusicology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Globalization.” Portugal) “Ethnography at Home: Revisiting the Past, (Re)Constructing Self and Others through Special Guest Lectures Fieldnotes.” John Prendergast gave a special lecture, “Stopping Genocide in Darfur,” in the Oak Room of POAET & Arts Week 2008 the Indiana Memorial Union on February 19, 2008. Presents “The Poem and the Prendergast is Co-Chair of the ENOUGH Project Emperor” and was a visiting scholar at the University of San Diego’s Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies in As its contribution to Arts Week 2008, the Project 2007-08. He is the author of eight books on Africa, on African Expressive Traditions (POAET) the most recent of which he co-authored with sponsored “The Poet and the Emperor: Power actor/activist Don Cheadle, Not on Our Watch. and the Arts in Nigeria & Beyond” at the Lilly Richard Werbner, Professor Emeritus of Library on February 25, 2008. During the event, IU African Anthropology, Manchester University, spent Comparative Literature professor Akinwumi several days on campus during spring semester. Co- Adesokan read from his novel Roots in the Sky. sponsored by Communication and Culture, Harvard professor Biodun Jeyifo then offered his Anthropology, and African Studies, Dr. Werbner reflections in response. Both raised issues about spoke about “Ethnographic Film-making as writing, the state, and politics in Nigeria and more Discovery: The Quest Trilogy” and showed his film broadly in Africa and elsewhere that were further “Eloyi” on March 18. His most recent publication is pursued in discussion by the audience. A reception Reasonable Radicals and Citizenship in Botswana: and an exhibit of works by Professors Adesokan The Public Anthropology of Kalanga Elites (2004). and Jeyifo followed. Professor Werbner’s current projects include a study of séances, counseling, and subjectivities in examination of the AIDS epidemic in Botswana. 2 African Studies Program ◊ Indiana University Summer 2008 Visiting Scholars survey A History of Art in Africa (Abrams/Prentice Hall 2000; Pierson 2007). She is currently Sponsored by the IU Institute for Advanced completing a manuscript on the methodologies and Studies, Adérónké Adésànyà was a scholar in critical issues encountered by art historians engaged residence from November 4-December 2, 2007. Dr. in research in African communities. Adésànyà is a Research Fellow/Lecturer in African Art History, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, as well as an accomplished cartoon artist. African Studies Welcomes Her current book project, Carving Woods, Making New Faculty History: Tradition, Modernity and Yoruba Woodcarvings is the first comprehensive work on Beth Lewis Samuelson joins the woodcarving tradition in the Yoruba town of Ila- the School of Education this fall. Orangun. During her residency at the Institute, Dr. Lewis Samuelson came to IU Adésànyà met with art history graduate students, from Central Michigan visited classes, and consulted with colleagues in University, where she was an several departments. She also gave a public lecture assistant professor in Education. on the Indianapolis campus and another in IU She is a 2006-2008 Spencer/National Academy of Bloomington’s Neal Marshall Black Culture Center Education Postdoctoral Fellow conducting research entitled “Contemporary Nigerian Artist: on reform of language and critical literacy education Confrontations, Contestations and Conversations in Rwanda. She also was a finalist in the 2006 with Modernity.” National Council of Teachers of English Promising Researcher competition. Before returning to The Department of Anthropology hosted academe, she was a high school EFL teacher and an Christiane Owusu-Sarpong for a lecture entitled assistant editor for a publisher of English language “The ‘Writing’ of History Among the Akan of teaching materials in Taiwan. As an adolescent, Dr. Ghana” on October 10 and a screening of her DVD Samuelson lived with her parents in the Democratic on Akan funeral rites on October 11, 2007. Dr. Republic of Congo. She speaks French and Owusu-Sarpong has a doctorate from the Université Lingala. de Franche- Comté, Besançon, and taught at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Michelle Moyd will be a new Kumasi, Ghana, until 2001. She has edited two faculty member in the History volumes of A Trilingual Anthology of African Folktalkes and published La Mort Akan – Etude Department. Dr. Moyd holds a Ethno-Semiotique Des Textes Funéraires Akan in bachelor’s degree from the addition to numerous other works. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Abdoul Sow, Dean of the Université Cheikh Princeton University and a master’s degree in Anta Diop School of Education in Dakar (Senegal), African History from the University of Florida, visited IU from May 3-9, 2008, to explore new Gainesville. She obtained her Ph.D. from Cornell possibilities for collaboration. The School of University. Her dissertation “Becoming Askari: Education hosts the ASP’s summer study abroad African Soldiers and Everyday Colonialism in program in Dakar. German East Africa, 1889-1918” is a social and On January 18, 2008, Monica Blackmun cultural history of the African soldiers known as Visonà of the Department of Art History, askari who fought in the German colonial army in University of Kentucky, offered this year’s Robert East Africa. She has received numerous grants, and Avis Burke Lecture in Art History on fellowships, and honors, and she has published “Constructing African Art Histories for the Lagoons articles, encyclopedia pieces, and book reviews. Peoples of Côte d'Ivoire.” Dr. Blackmun Visonà is the principal author of the critically acclaimed 3 African Studies Program ◊ Indiana University Summer 2008 Islam, Contested Authority and Renewal and Female Authority in Contemporary Mali,” Dorothea Schulz (IU); “Ahmed Deedat and the Making of Everyday the Form of Islamic Evangelism in Nigeria,” Brian Lives in Africa Larkin (Barnard College). The keynote lecture entitled “Islam in Question: When and for Whom is ‘Islam’ the Answer?” was The African Studies Program hosted a delivered by historian Barbara Cooper, Director of conference on “Islam, Contested Authority, and the the Rutgers University African Studies Program. Making of Everyday Lives in Africa” on October