African Studies Newsletter Spring/Summer 2017

BOSTON UNIVERSITY AFRICAN STUDIES

New sletter SPRI NG/SUMMER 2017 | I SSUE no 7

CULT I VAT I NG CONNECT I VI T Y Professor Cynthia Becker travels through North and East Africa to discover the connectivity of material and visual cultures across the continent.

Beyond t he Aest het ics

by Mimi Stith Boston University's African Studies Center has more than 150 affiliated faculty, many of whom conduct research across the globe each year. Dr Becker's enthusiasm for learning, adventure, and discovery on the continent inspires her peers and students alike. Her forthcoming book will examine the rarely explored intersection of art history and anthropology in the Moroccan Gnawa community.

Spring 2018 marks the beginning of art history professor Cynthia Becker ?s hard-earned sabbatical. Sabbatical is often thought of as a time for writing and reflection, but her work reminds us that it is also a time to form new connections. Connections, tracing them and making them, is a specialty of Professor Becker. This focus is seen in her geographical interest? trans-Saharan trade routes? and her method? linking motifs of art forms and aspects of identity as they move across the countries of the Sahara desert in order to understand change, connection, and continuity in society.

Professor Becker has been working on transnational artistic connections for several decades, particularly among the Amazigh (Berber), the indigenous people of north Africa and the Sahara who are renowned for their textiles, jewelry, and leather work.

While on sabbatical Professor Becker will complete her second book, tentatively titled Representing Blackness in Post-slavery Morocco: Gnawa, Africa, and the Saharan Divide. The book is an exploration of Afro-Islamic aesthetics and ceremonial practices of the Gnawa that considers the history of the trans-Saharan slave trade and its impact on material culture in northern Africa. She asks herself and readers: What does it mean to identify as African in Morocco, a country typically associated with the Middle East and the Arab

world? She further focuses on questions surrounding racial ideologies constructed in relation to enslaved Africans in Morocco.

Completing her book is not her only project during her upcoming sabbatical. Building on her time as the 2009-2010 Suzanne Young Murray Fellow at Radcliffe Institute, Dr. Becker is partnering with Dr. Seema Alavi of Delhi University?s History Department to convene a related Radcliffe Exploratory Seminar in May 2018 entitled ?Routes of Indigo: Interwoven Histories of the Global South.?

This seminar will bring scholars together for dialogue on the aesthetic, economic, and political life of indigo from Africa to Asia and beyond. A number of other projects seeded in the recent past will come to fruition during the 2017-2018 academic year.

These include the publication of the catalogue From Ostrich Plumes to Carved Calabashes: Visual Expressions of Trans-Saharan Mobility and Trade

at the Newark Museum and her work as a subject advisor for a publication on modern and contemporary Maghrebi art for The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

During Summer 2017, Professor Becker will once again serve as the head faculty member for BU?s Study Abroad program in Zanzibar, Tanzania. The Swahili Language and Culture program in Zanzibar exposes students to issues of religion, ethnicity, race, gender, class, and politics in East Africa. Students live with local families while taking a Swahili language course and a course on the political and cultural history of Zanzibar and East Africa.

Zanzibar was a historical contact zone for African, Arab, and Indian people and remains so today. Much still remains to be uncovered and we eagerly await the scholarship that Professor Becker will produce from her and the students?experiences on this cosmopolitan island with rich art forms, history, and lessons about a global society. If

you were unable to make it to Zanzibar this year, you can still take her art history course, Zanzibar to Morocco, this coming fall.

Becker explores cultural patters and connections through the lives and material culture of diverse people across the world.

This interest allows her to make valuable connections within the BU community as well. As a member of BU?s Art History Department and African Studies Center, she is guiding students to acknowledge the impact of the African Diaspora on the recognized centers of the art world. Through her passion for art history, she reminds us that Africa?s stories are the world?s stories and the world?s stories are Africa?s stories.

Cover Images: Cynthia Becker Article Images: Cynthia Becker Mimi Stith is currently a PhD candidate at Boston University's department of Anthropology.

Jess Thai, CAS ' 20

CERTIFICATE GRADUATES

DOCTORATES

Erika Beidelman, MA, Pardee

Christopher Conz, History, "Wisdom Does Not Live In One House": Compiling Environmental Knowledge in Lesotho, Southern Africa, c.

1880-1965

Anam Mahmood Bhatti, MPH, SPH Christopher Conz, PhD, History Helene Jula Decosse, BA, CAS Nicholas J. Diamond, MPH, SPH Devra Gelman, BA, Pardee Courtney Kramer, MA, Pardee

Eniola Soyemi, Political Science, Law's Moral Legitimacy and the Significance of Participation

17-18 FLAS FELLOW S

Lauren McDermott, BA, CAS

Joshua Castillo, PhD, History, Swahili*

Robert L. Nelson, Jr., MA, Pardee

Sabrina Hassan, BA, Pardee, Swahili*

Ela Soyemi, PhD, Political Science Kasey Shultz, BA, CAS

Faridat Ilupeju, BS, Sargent, Hausa* * Jethro Israel, PhD, History, Wolof* Damilola Iyiola, MPH/MS, SPH, Swahili* *

Gabriel Toole, BA, Pardee

Suegatha KaiRennie, BA, Pardee, Swahili* * *

Faith Udoudo Umoh, MPH, SPH

Kaylee Kim, MPH, SPH, Swahili* *

Robert Bruce Yoder, PhD, STH

Tae'Shaona Matthews, BA, CAS, Arabic* Elizabeth Pell, BA, CAS, Arabic* Amy Pollard, MA, Pardee/COM, Swahili* Laura Wiggins, MA, Pardee, Wolof* Emily Williamson, PhD, Anthropology, Hausa* * * Brian Woerner, MBA/MA, Questrom/Pardee, Swahili* *20 17-20 18 Academ ic year **Sum m er 20 17 *** 20 17-20 18 Academ ic year and sum m er 20 17

From t he Direct or 's Desk When I arrived at Boston University in 2009 to assume the directorship of the African Studies Center, I w as excited for opportunities to build on BU?s great African studies tradition. The ASC w as in a strong position, and I w as w elcomed into a w arm community that w as open to new people and new ideas. I am pleased that over the past eight years, w e have continued to develop new programs and strengthen African studies at BU, and I take this opportunity to reflect on a few of the accomplishments that w e have achieved.

The academic offerings focused on Africa at BU continue to expand. We have added new faculty in international relations, economics, and anthropology and have sponsored the creation of classes in public health, gastronomy, art history, history, and anthropology. We have strengthened linkages w ith academic institutions in Senegal, South Africa, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, and developed new study abroad programs in Zanzibar and Ghana. Our Walter Rodney Seminar Series, ably organized by Edouard Bustin, continues to sponsor some of the finest research on Africa on a w eekly basis, and our Publications Program continues to publish top quality w ritings. Our visiting researcher program has continued to expand. We have also tried to improve our connections w ith alumni, as reflected in this new sletter.

Under the able leadership of Fallou Ngom, our African Language Program has continued to grow . BU?s African language teachers are w ell trained and highly engaged in the African studies community. They have developed fantastic multi-media teaching materials and have been pioneers in including Ajami script in our curriculum. While strengthening our existing languages, w e have added Igbo and Akan Tw i to our regular offerings, and have taught Kinyarw anda and Lingala periodically in response to student demand.

Our Outreach Program has continued to develop. Our teaching materials on Boko Haram, Kony 2012, and Nelson M andela have been w idely used, and w e?ve partnered w ith Primary Source and Facing History and Ourselves on important teacher training programs. We have developed a new certification program for teachers w ho gain a specialization in Africa. We have sponsored tw o Fulbright-Hays programs ? one for teachers in Tanzania and Egypt and another in Senegal for college professors. The excellence of the ASC continues to gain notice. Our Title VI NRC and FLAS grants have been renew ed tw ice, w ith significant increases in funding. Our faculty members have w on Fulbright, Gugenheim, Radcliffe, and other fellow ships.

Our graduate students have been sponsored by Fulbright and Fulbright-Hays, as w ell as BU grants like the M oorman-Simon Civic Fellow ship. And our graduates have gained posts at places like Duke, Oregon, CSU San Bernardino, Simmons College, and Boston College.

As I step dow n as director and move on to new responsibilities at BU, I am pleased to leave the ASC in able hands. Peter Quella has been a Godsend as assistant director and has emerged as a real leader in African studies both at BU and beyond. Alix Saba and Breeanna Elliott have brought fresh ideas and energy. M ike DiBlasi and Sandi M cCann continue to ably run our publishing program. I am particularly pleased that Fallou Ngom has agreed to become director. A w idely recognized linguistic anthropologist, Fallou is also highly respected by his peers at BU. We look forw ard to his passionate and innovative leadership.

Jess Thai, CAS ' 20 Jess Thai, CAS ' 20

Tim Longman June 2017

OUTREACH FAREW ELLS

by T im L ongman For teachers throughout Massachusetts ? in fact, for many educators throughout the country ? Barbara Brown has long been the face of BU?s African Studies Center. For over 25 years, Barbara has worked to spread knowledge and understanding of Africa and its peoples, cultures, and governments as Director of BU?s African Outreach Program. Over the years, she has developed a wide range of teaching materials ? CDs, posters, teaching units, articles, power-point presentations, annotated bibliographies, even boxes of African objects for teachers to show their students about life in Kenya and Ghana. Her poster, ?How Big is Africa?? has become iconic.

Barbara earned her PhD in political science here at BU then taught for several years at the University of Botswana before returning to take over as director in 1990. Since that time, Barbara has trained hundreds of teachers who have been empowered to bring Africa into the classroom. She has led multiple NEH and Fulbright-Hays seminars whose alumni have themselves been inspired to develop curricular materials. Her African book group has introduced teachers to many new authors. Since arriving in Boston, I have regularly run into people who ask me if I know Barbara. When I say that I do, they tell me how much they?ve benefitted from her wisdom.

Many at BU may not realize how much Barbara is seen as a national leader in Africa outreach. Her colleagues at other African studies programs clearly see Barbara as a deep source of knowledge and experience, and they have regularly turned to her to for leadership. When the African studies community was upset by Invisible Children?s Kony 2012 video, they turned to Barbara to organize a response. Barbara has regularly coordinated the teachers workshops held annually at the ASA meeting.

As of May 31, Barbara Brown has officially retired from BU. The large number of teachers who attended the reception we held in April to honor her was testament to Barbara?s impact. If you have not already done so, please send Barbara a note to thank her for many years of service and tell her how her work has affected you. We wish Barbara the best and know that she will continue to be part of our community.

ZOLISWA MALI Zulu Umntu ngumntu ngabantu. A human being is a person because of other human beings.

We're interdependent as people, no one is an island.

BREEANNA ELLIOTT

JAMES McCANN

Swahili

Amharic/ Gurage

Wajua kitu kitamu kiko wapi, which translates to they know where the sweet thing is. It has various applied meanings, but I take it as a reminder to always prioritize those (sweet) things I enjoy most.

W ORDS OF W ISDOM

Ya meftehay giday, chewna berbere lay. The true meaning can be found in salt and pepper.

WE ASKED OUR COMMUNITY FOR THEIR MOST BELOVED AFRICAN PROVERBS AND THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO SHARE WITH US.

LES KAUFMAN

PETER QUELLA

Swahili

Sesotho

Atangaye na jua hujuwa.

Something like ?If you wander around all day, you learn stuff.?

Morena ke khetsi ea masepa.

Literally, the leader is the shit-bag (of the people); meaning that they must take on all that is bad and good from their constituents.

Tom Herlehy '85 is still working in international agricultural development, primarily in Africa.

He has worked for various internal development firms and organizations and has overseen biofortified foods programs in Tanzania, Kenya, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. He has also advised a USAID-funded Feed the Future livestock development program in Mali.

Akin Ogundiran '00 is currently finishing a book on Yoruba cultural history. He was a fellow at the National Humanities Center in 2015/ 16, and most recently he was selected as Alfred Yip fellow at Magdalene College of the University of Cambridge.

Y. Obenewa Amponsah '01 has spent the past few years as the CEO of the Steve Biko Foundation (SBF), a community development organization inspired by the late-apartheid activist Steve Biko.

Obenewa also worked as a Senior Consultant with GoodWorks International and the Administrator of the African Presidental Archives & Research Centre. She currently is the Exectutive Director of the Havard University Center of the African Studies South Africa Office.

Jess Thai, CAS ' 20

Alum ni Up d ates

Emily Williamson, GRS ' 22

Gizo-Gizo!: A Tale from t he Zong o Lag oon A Personal Reflection by Emily Williamson ?This is the breaking news in the zongo! All of the children will let everyone know about this [?Gizo-Gizo!?]. Even this afternoon, I went back and lots of adults and kids were huddled around a single book reading it. The children were teaching their parents.?

-Muhammad Awal; now teacher/ previous student How does one, in a few paragraphs, tell the story of a story? In this case, where, how, why, and when did the children?s story ?Gizo-Gizo!? come to life in Ghana?s Cape Coast zongo[ 1] and how does it continue to unfold in the companionship of its authors, illustrators, readers, and listeners? As with other Hausa folktales, the storyteller selects from a nearly infinite set of beginnings.

Indeed, while Malam Hammadu, the head teacher of the Hassaniyya Quranic School, might pinpoint its origins on the humid afternoon in June 2012 in which we held a community-based design workshop for educational programming, former students (now teachers) Muhammad Awal and Yusuf might open their story with the long hours we spent later that summer contemplating Spider?s bad habits while sipping on icy cold Milo. And, still other students such as Abidatu, Aminatu, and Ramatu might point proudly instead to their carefully wrought pencil drawings of crab fishing in his canoe, a platter of fried fish, or fantastical, eye-shaped trees. I will leave those stories for them to tell.

My love for writing and illustrating children?s stories runs nearly as deep as my life. For me, this story and project began nearly nine years ago when I arrived in Cape Coast, Ghana as an eager architecture student wanting ?to do good in the world.? My instructor had introduced me to the region?s Chief Imam (and head of the zongo community) outside his house and location of the Quranic School, or what the community calls ?Madrasa Alley.? Without the intimate knowledge of place ? its layers of meaning, culture, and history ? all I could see at that time were skeletal earthen structures, the pungent odor of open sewers, the static crackling of the call to prayer, and above all, poverty. What I realized years later though, was that the very story I had fashioned then ? its characters, conflict, and resolution ? had less to do with how the inhabitants saw, felt about, and understood their world and more to do with my own discomfort of inhabiting a world I had not yet learned to read and comprehend. As I spent summer after summer getting to know the place and contours of everyday life, I realized, a little despondently, that most of the participatory design strategies I had in mind no longer made sense ? that is except for our story-telling workshops.

It was every weekend in madrasa alley ? under a billowing rice bag canopy protecting us from the blistering sun ? that we came together over story-telling and then eventually story-making. At first, we read stories out loud together and exchanged tales we heard from our grandparents. I read them Roald Dahl?s George?s Marvelous Medicine and a fictional story I wrote about my first travels to Ghana in 2002. The children (and adults too) shared accounts of wild beasts that used to live in the bush of Kotokuraba market, men from Niger who would play xylophone under a full moon, and procrastinating cockroaches who danced during the rainy season instead of collecting water. We also talked about current challenges the students and community faced ? experiences that were not yet stories, but could be. I recall one child describing a recent issue in which the city of Cape Coast had no clean drinking water for a few weeks because the mining companies upstream had polluted their water with chemicals and waste. Other students agreed and supplemented with their own experiences, ideas, and views about the problem and potential solutions.

Through a collaborative, multi-faceted process of drawing, performance, writing, and reading, we tacked between these lived and imagined worlds until the shape of ?Gizo-Gizo!? gradually came to life. As we tried on the voices and personalities of the characters through drama performances, drew the places in which they lived, laughed with each other about how our imaginations etched onto the page, and wrote about how the characters changed over the course of the story, I relished the creative inconsistencies in our multiple interpretations across mediums. More recently though, I felt saddened by certain congruencies and singularities required in publishing our story and perhaps even more so by the monetary and ethical challenges that inevitably arose in its wake.

Nevertheless, the collaborative process of creating ?Gizo-Gizo!? and story-making more generally ? at once rooted in local experience and all that exists imaginatively outside it, I believe has the capacity to offer all of us (whether children or adults) productive ways-in to understanding and experiencing one another?s worlds without necessarily requiring us to share the same world. For as one resident offered up to me, ?Life has its crooked ways. There is suffering. It has its ups and downs ? we have to learn how to cope with it. Stories can help us. It is a way to make the sour turn sweet? ?. [ 1] ?Zongos? (also spelled ?zango?) are a particular kind of West African urban settlement meaning ?traveler?s camp,? ?stop-over,? or ?Hausa quarters? in the Hausa language. See: Paul Newman. A Hausa-English Dictionary. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007) 230.

Jess Thai CAS '20

Jess Thai, CAS ' 20

OUTREACH This spring, the Outreach Program launched its inaugural semesterly seminar series w ith the theme, Introduction to African History.

Crossing time and space, the different seminars touched on important topics such as Islam across Africa, pre-European intercontinental trade netw orks, and the West African empires. Attracting educators, students, and academics alike, w e w ere excited to expand our regular professional development opportunities. We also hosted tw o w eekend w orkshops for Boston area educators and invited faculty and staff from local institutions to offer innovative and engaging w ays to incorporate Africa into diverse curricula. As alw ays, w e appreciated the opportunity to present at the Northeast Regional Conference on the Social Studies and enjoyed record-breaking attendance at our ?African Globalization Prior to European Colonization.? Working w ith Teaching Tolerance, w e published ?Repositioning Africa?s Place in the Classroom? in order to promote this theme to a w ider audience. As w e Jess Thaiyear, CAS ' 20 prepare for the upcoming we honor the nearly three decades of generous service from our Outreach Director Barbara Brow n and w ish her a happy retirement!

Photo Right: Hannah Pittel

WARA W ELCOME This spring the West African Research Association extended a warm and enthusiastic welcome to Caroline Johnson as the new Operations Manager at the US headquarters within Boston University?s African Studies Center. Prior to WARA, Caroline was a personal accounting administrator for Ayco, a Goldman Sachs company and served in the Peace Corps in southeast Senegal as a Community Economic Development agent. There, she specialized in grants and project management for local entrepreneurships as well as scholarship administration promoting female and youth empowerment. Caroline's expertise extends into the Fulbright Commission of Belgium where she coordinated social services for refugee, asylee, and immigrant clients at the International Institute of New England. Hailing from Albany, NY, she completed the Rotary Youth Exchange program in Belgium in 2010 and earned her B.A. in economics from Stonehill College in 2013 as a member of the economics honor society Omicron Delta Epsilon. When Caroline isn't at the office, she enjoys patronizing the arts, snowboarding, biking, and paddleboarding. She is fluent in French and MalinkĂŠ, which makes her a particularly fitting addition to the multilingual community at the Center. Please join WARA and the ASC in welcoming Caroline.

LIBRARY An Update from the African Studies Library A library' s most obvious function may seem passive--simply a destination and resource for research, but this year the African Studies Library (ASL) staff have concentrated their efforts in making the library a place to actively engage in learning.

Peace Corps: 55 Years of Global Engagement As part of the 5th annual International Education Week at BU, the ASL organized and hosted tw o events entitled "Conversations w ith returned Peace Corps Volunteers" w ithin their reading room. These w ere informal conversations w ith returned volunteers from w ithin the BU community, including faculty, staff, and students that made for particularly engaging discussion.

The ASL concurrently presented an exhibit entitled ?Peace Corps: 55 Years of Global Engagement?, w hich revealed the impact that Peace Corps has had on our community and highlighted a few of the materials w ithin the collections, including memoirs, field notes, photographs, and educational and training publications.

CineAfrique: African Language Film Series this Fall As Spring semester drew to a close, the ASL hosted a screening of the Wolof/French film ' Ainsi meurent les anges [And So Angels Die] (2001) by Senegalese film maker M ousa Sène Absa. The screening w as a success.

Wolof students attended w ith Prof. Lamine Diallo as w ell as others from the BU community.

ASL w ill officially launch its CineAfrique Film Series in the Fall, featuring 3 to 4 films throughout the semester that w ill show case the BU Libraries' African language film offerings. Film selections w ill be made in consultation w ith faculty w ith the aim of incorporating them into their coursew ork. We hope language learners and aficionados of African cinema w ill attend, but everyone from the BU community is w elcome. A cinema club type of discussion w ill immediately follow the screenings. M ore details to come!

PUBLICATIONS The International Journal of African Historical Studies celebrates it?s 50th anniversary w ith discounted prices on all hardcopy issues of the journal published from 2004 (IJAHS vol. 37) to 2015 (IJAHS vol. 48). Copies can be purchased for $5.00 each, plus shipping. This includes the follow ing special issues: Colonial States and Civic Virtues in Africa (Luise White, guest editor), IJAHS 37:1 (2004) Continuities in Governance in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial East Africa (Andrew Burton and M ichael Jennings, guest editors), IJAHS 40:1 (2007) The Political Ecology of Trade, Food Production, and Landscape Transformations in Northeast Tanzania: 1850?2000 (M ats Widgren, N. Thomas Hå kansson, and Low e Bö rjeson, guest editors), IJAHS 41:3 (2008) Current Trends in the Archaeology of African History (Ann B. Stahl and Adria LaViolette, guest editors), IJAHS 42:3 (2009) Tow ard a History of Violence in Colonial Kenya (M atthew Carotenuto and Brett Shadle, guest editors), IJAHS 45:1 (2012) Incorporating M edical Research into the History of M edicine in East Africa (M elissa Graboyes, guest editor), IJAHS 47:3 (2014) Violence in the Contemporary Political History of Eastern Africa (Øystein H. Rolandsen and David M .

Andersom, guest editors), IJAHS 48:1 (2015) Exploring Post-Slavery in Contemporary Africa (Baz Lecocq and Éric Komlavi Hahonou, guest editors), IJAHS 48:2 (2015) Wealth in Pluralities. Intersections of M oney, Gender, and M ultiple Values across African Societies (Charlotte Walker-Said and Andrea Felber Seligman, guest editors), IJAHS 48:3 (2015) Supplies are limited. Contact us at ascpub@bu.edu to order and arrange for shipping.