For African Studies Association Members
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FOR AFRICAN STUDIES I ASSOCIATION MEMBERS I VOLUME XXI JANUARY/MARCH 1988 No.1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ASA Board of Directors 2 From the Secretariat... 2 1988 Annual Meeting 3 International Visitors Program 4 Editorship of the African Studies Review 5 Minutes Board of Directors 6 Business Meeting 22 Publications Committee 26 Archives-Libraries Committee Report 28 Women's Caucus News 31 Protest of the South African Universities Act 32 African Prisoners of Conscience 34 l Notes on Current Issues 35 American Academics and South Africa: Alternative Perspectives 36 Future Meetings 39 Announcements 40 Employment Opportunities 41 Recent Doctoral Dissertations 43 2 ASA BOARD OF DIRECTORS OFFICERS President: Nzongola-Ntalaja (Howard University) Vice-President: Simon Ottenberg (University of Washington) Past President: Aidan Southall (University of Wisconsin-Madison) RETIRING IN 1988 Edward A. Alpers (University of California, Los Angeles) Margaret Jean Hay (Boston University) Joseph C. Miller (University of Virginia) RETIRING IN 1989 Mario J. Azevedo (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) Pauline H. Baker (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) Allen F. Isaacman (University of Minnesota) RETIRING IN 1990 Sandra Barnes (University of Pennsylvania) Iris Berger (State University of New York at Albany) Kwabena Nketia (University of Pittsburgh) FROM THE SECRETARIAT... This issue of ASA News is the first produced in the Association's new headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Our host institution, Emory University, has provided us with spa cious office and storage space on the lower level of the Emory Federal Credit Union Building at 1237 Clairmont Road. We welcome visitors. whose appearance reminds us that we are indeed more than a mail-order operation. With our new home have come a number of new faces. Norma Miller, the ASA Administrative Assistant, joined us from a previous position in the Emory Medical School. Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Norma has degrees in business adminis tration from Memphis State University. Iris Rafi, whose family emigrated to the US from the Bahamas, is the ASA's membership secretary and Crossroads Press assistant Judy Sneller, an emigre from Florida, is learning to cope with our new Macintosh desk top publishing system as our publications assistant. Both Iris and Judy are graduate as sistants whose non-ASA time is spent pursuing the PhD in Emory's Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts. Mary Coleman, our Crossroads Press orders clerk, is a freshman in Emory College. Finally, Pavlik Nikitine, an Emory College senior. works for us as a volunteer to keep up an interest in Africa sparked by his participation in a Duke Univer sity study program last summer. 3 Continuity of operations is our first concern. We've a lot to learn, and welcome your suggestions and gentle criticisms. Once we have our systems in place, we expect to make occasional departures from past practices in the interests ofefficiency and service to our members. In short, we are enthusiastic about getting to know the ASA member ship and serving you well. Future issues of ASA News will be scheduled to arrive in your hands early in the frrst month of the quarter. The copy deadline for any issue will be the fIrst of the month prior to the newsletter date, e.g. March 1 for the April-June issue. Please feel free to submit announcements, notices, letters, and items of opinion of interest to the ASA membership. We reserve the right to edit all copy as we deem appropriate or necessary. This issue inaugurates what we hope will be a series of occasional features of spe cial interest. Issue editor Harvey Glickman arranged for the publication of the opening portion of a keynote address made by Pauline Baker at the October 1987 meeting of the Political Science Association of South Africa. Her remarks address the question of aca demic and political freedom in South Africa and are presented here to encourage discus sion of the crucial issue of American scholars' relationship to South African colleagues and academic institutions. EdnaG.Bay Executive Secretary 1988 ANNUAL MEETING The 31st Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association will be held at the McCormick Center Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, from October 28-31, 1988. Northwestern University will host the meeting which coincides with the fortieth anniversary of the University's Program of African Studies. The Program Chair is Karen Tranberg Hansen of the Department of Anthropology. Papers and panels are especially solicited on the meeting theme, "Continuity and Change in Africa," though panels and paper proposals on all aspects of African studies and from every discipline in the arts, humanities and so cial sciences are welcome. Please send proposals for panels and papers with pre-registration fees to: 1988 An nual Meeting, African Studies Association, Credit Union Building, Emory University, ,. Atlanta, GA 30322. Proposals should include a typed one-page abstract of each paper. Individual scholars may present only one paper at the meeting. The Program Committee encourages panel organizers to be sensitive to gender and ethnic balance in the composi tion of their sessions. The deadline for submission of proposals and abstracts is April IS, 1988. Pre-registration fees are: Regular members - $25; Student/Retired/ Unemployed members - $12.50; Non-member professionals - $30; Student/Retired/Non-members $15. On-site registration fees will be significantly higher. Payment of pre-registration fees is a condition of acceptance of proposals. 4 INTERNA TIONAL VISITORS PROGRAM In recent years, scholars resident overseas have participated in ASA Annual Meet ings with the help of funding from the Ford Foundation. USIA. and other organizations. The Board of Directors is grateful for this generous support of an essential component of the Annual Meeting. and works to assure that visitors from abroad are selected so that funding is distributed equitably to qualified applicants. The Association invites prospective panel organizers and individuals resident over seas to submit applications for full or partial support to allow scholars based outside the United States to participate in the meeting. Panel organizers may request support for one panelist only. Requests should be addressed to the 1988 Program Committee, Afri can Studies Association. Credit Union Building, Emory University. Atlanta, GA 30322, and should include the following information: 1. Name of scholar, his or her country of residence. institutional affiliation, area of specialization, and proposed paper topic; 2. Scholar's record of attendance during the past five years at ASA Annual Meetings and at other professional meetings in the US; 3. Scholar's plans for participation in other professional activities in the US before and after the Annual Meeting; 4. Indication if scholar needs full or partial (local conference costs or air travel costs only) support; 5. In the case of scholars nominated by panel organizers. the name of the panel organizer and the panel subject. Requests for support must be received no later than April 15. 1988. Scholars nomi nated may be of any nationality though the preponderance of grants will be awarded to Africans. In addition to a fair representation of disciplines and geographical areas. the se lection committee will be concerned to include an appropriate representation of women scholars. Priority will be given to scholars who have not recently attended ASA meet ings and to those with definite plans to undertake other professional activities during their visit. .. 5 EDITORSHIP OF THE AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW The editorship of the African Studies Review, the quarterly journal of the Af rican Studies Association, will be open in June 1988 due to the resignation of R. Hunt Davis, Jr., the previous editor. The Board of Directors of the Association seeks bids for an editor and host institution for the journal. Prospective editors are invited to consider ways in which they might use their tenure to shape the direction of scholarly debate and to promote the inter disciplinary quality of African studies research. The Board would welcome crea tive ideas as to how to achieve these goals, including: How individual papers based in one discipline can communicate the ex citement and significance of their research to scholars in other disciplines; How issues devoted to a particular theme can be used to explore that theme from different disciplinary perspectives; How book reviews and review essays can contribute to the larger goals; How emerging themes, issues. and methodologies in the field may be highlighted. The Board would like to explore with a new editor how to create a dialogue between interdisciplinary African studies and the more specialized disciplinary in terests such as education, science and technology. economics, and health and nu tntlon. Any particular editor will have her or his own special interests and scholarly agenda, and although the Directors have tried to suggest the diversity of the field, they do not wish to imply that any individual editor could address all these concerns. There are a number of ways the ASR could be conceptualized and adminis tered. Prospective editors are encouraged to articulate 1) their conception of the possibilities for using the journal to meet the goals outlined above; 2) how they would structure the editorship (single or joint editors. single ed itor plus one or two associate editors. book review editor or editors. and an edito rial board); 3) the kind of support their home institution might be willing to provide, including possibly a) release time for the editor b) general office support c) secretarial support d) graduate assistant help for copy-editing, proof-reading, or re search. Persons with an interest in preparing a bid for the consideration of the Board are encouraged to contact the secretariat as soon as possible. For additional in formation. call the Executive Secretary at 404-329-6410. 6 MINUTES BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING Thursday, November 19, 1987. 9 a.m.