MSU Tuesday Bulletin, 04/13/10
Tuesday Bulletin for April 13th, 2010
Topics covered in this issue: Events | Announcements | Other Announcements |
Conferences
Events
Thursday, April 15, 2010
"The Evolution of Food Security Policy in Mali," African Studies Center Brown Bag talk
with Mme. Lansry Nana Haidara, Food Security Commissioner of Mali, Office of the
President, 12:00 noon, Room 201 International Center. Co-sponsored by the Department of
Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics.
Friday, April 16, 2010
"The `Africanization' of the Amboseli Baboon Project," GenCen Colloquia series with
Georgina Montgomery, Faculty (Lyman Briggs College and Dept. of History, MSU), 1:30 - 3:00
p.m., Room 302 International Center.
Monday, April 19, 2010
An Evening of African Music with Zimbabwean mbira master, Musekiwa Chingodza, 7:30
p.m., RCAH Theater, Room C20 Snyder Hall. Co-sponsored by the College of Music, the
Residential College of the Arts and Humanities, and the African Studies Center. FREE and
open to the public.
Announcements
Africa Past and Present Podcast
"Africa Past and Present" is a podcast about history, culture, and politics in Africa hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb. It is produced by MATRIX - The Center for Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online at MSU (http://www.matrix.msu.edu). Listen and subscribe to the biweekly podcast at: http://afripod.aodl.org/.
Faculty Announcements
Teaching Excellence in the Arts & Humanities
Congratulations to Dr. Peter Alegi and Dr. Charles Keith. Both professors have been
selected to receive the IAH 2010 Fintz Award for Teaching Excellence in the Arts and
Humanities. The Award recognizes exceptional faculty who seek to familiarize students with
different ways of learning and different types of artistic expression, and who assist them
in developing critical thinking and effective communication skills.
Faculty Publication Announcement
Ohio University Press announces the following publication by Peter Alegi: African
Soccerscapes: How a Continent Changed the World's Game, Ohio University Press, 2010.
Available months before this summer's World Cup in South Africa, African Soccerscapes
tells the little-known story of football in Africa, the most popular sport on the
continent and possibly the most popular cultural activity on the planet. Alegi, using case
studies from around Africa, demonstrates! how Africans appropriated and transformed the
game that was first introduced by European imperial powers in the nineteenth century. This
approach to studying Africa through a lens of popular culture and in a global context is
one of the hallmarks of Ohio University Press's new Africa in World History series.
To request a review copy and for information about author events, contact Jeff Kallet at kallet@ohio.edu.
Faculty Announcement - 2009 Best Article Award
Congratulations to Zhying Xu, William Burke, Thomas Jayne, and Jones Govereh who
received the 2009 Best Article Award in Agricultural Economics for their article "Do input
subsidy programs 'crowd in' or 'crowd out' commercial market development? Modeling
fertilizer demand in a two-channel marketing system." Agricultural Economics, 40(1):
79-94. Zhying Xu and William Burke were gra! duate students, Thomas Jayne is Professor,
International Development, and Jones Govereh was a research fellow in Zambia at the time
the paper was written. Each recipient is affiliated with MSU's Department of Agricultural,
Food, and Resource Economics.
Other Announcements
African Studies Association-Deadlines Approaching
The African Studies Association (ASA) is currently accepting submissions for the 2010
Call for Proposals. The African Studies Association's 53rd Annual Meeting will be held
November 18-21, 2010 at The Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, CA. This year's
Annual Meeting theme is "African Diaspora and Diasporas in Africa" and this year's Program
Chair is Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University. For more information on the CFP, please
download the ASA CFP Guidelines and 2010 Theme Statement.
To submit your proposal, you may log on at http://www.africanstudies.org/. Note: membership dues and pre-registration fee or non-member pre-registration fee must be paid prior to submitting a proposal. Payments may be made via secure third-party credit card processing, check, or money order. For more information on pre-registration and membership rates, visit www.africanstudies.org.
For questions, please contact Kimme Carlos, Program Manager, Annual Meeting Services, at 732-932-8173, x15 or at kimme.carlos@africanstudies.org.
If you wish to nominate a fellow Africanist for an award or want more info about
proposals, visit:
May 1, 2010 -Herskovits Award Nomination Deadline:
http://www.africanstudies.org/p/cm/ld/fid=18
July 1, 2010 -Deadline for Advertisements for September ASR and for History in
Africa:
http://www.africanstudies.org/p/cm/ld/fid=30
2010 Summer Institute for Ph.D. Students-June 9-12
The National Council for Black Studies and the Ford Foundation are pleased to announce
a two and a half day Institute for students currently pursuing a Ph.D. in African Studies
or related disciplines (Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education).
The Institute is open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, and ten (10) students
will be selected to participate. The Institute, with the help of renowned scholars, will
bolster participants' knowledge about the foundations trajectory of Africana Studies and
provide them with mentoring and other support useful for completion of the degree. Georgia
State University will host the Institute and participants will be housed on campus. Travel
expenses will be covered for participants up to a maximum of $500. Lodging and meals will
also be provided at no charge to participants.
Applications must be post-marked no later than April 23, 2010. For application forms and more information, please go to the National! Council for Black Studies website: http://www.ncbsonline.org/summer_institute.
Conferences
David Robinson and the Writing of African History
David Robinson is a pioneer in the writing of the history of Muslim communities in
Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, when African history was emerging as a new area of study,
historians of Africa were mainly concerned with reconstructing the history of the
pre-colonial states and telling the story of the Atlantic Slave trade. They left the study
of religion to the social scientists. Going against the grain, Robinson made an important
contribution by both focusing on the history of the Muslim communities that form the
majority of the population of Western Sudan and demonstrating the critical importance of
local written and oral sources for a credible reconstruction of the African past. Because
of his original and masterful scholarship, Robinson is celebrated as one of the most
influential historians of West Africa. His remarkable contribution to the field of African
history is also recognized through the diverse group of graduate students he has trained,
many of whom have emerged as leading scholars in their respective fields.
Robinson's students have come together to organize a conference to honor their mentor
and pay tribute to his influential scholarship. This event will bring together his former
students, colleagues, and friends on the campus of Michigan State University. The
conference will be devoted to examining key dimensions of Robinson's seminal contributions
to African studies and historical methodology.
The MSU History department is hosting this conference in honor of Dr. David Robinson's work in the field of African History. The conference will convene at Michigan State University on April 30-May 1, 2010. Please visit the following website for conference program at: http://drconference.wordpress.com. Please direct inquiries to: history.courses@matrix.msu.edu.
Medical Anthropology in Global Africa Forum- CFP
The Kansas African Studies Center invites you to present your research as part of the
conference, Medical Anthropology in Global Africa: Current Trends in Scholarship and
Practice to be held at the University of Kansas, September 16-18, 2010. This conference
aims to bring together Africanist anthropologist and scholars in related disciplines whose
research concerns the intersections among cultural anthropology and medicine, public
health, psychology, history, population and development, and science and technology
studies.
Professor Carolyn Sargent of the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis will give the conference's keynote address. Panel chairs will include: Daniel Smith (Brown Univ.); Claire Wendland (Univ. of Wisconsin); Kristin Peterson (U! niv. of California, Irvine); and Ama de Graft-Aikins (Univ. of Ghana). Papers that are presented at the conference will be compiled into an edited volume. Those who are interested in presenting a paper are asked to submit an abstract of 250 words by April 30, 2010. Abstracts should be e-mailed to Professor Kathryn Rhine, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas: kasc.maba2010@gmail.com. More information can be found on the conference website: http://www.kasc.ku.edu/HC.shtml.
Midwest Popular Culture African Studies Area -CFP
The African Studies area of the Midwest Popular Culture Association seeks panel and
paper proposals for the annual Midwest Popular Culture Association/American Culture
Association conference, this year to be held at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel in
Minneapolis, MN from Friday, 1 October to Sunday 3 October. The area seeks papers whose
topics address any aspect of popular culture on the African continent. Topics might
address, but are not in any way limited to: Literature; Film or media; Theatre and
performance; Music; Visual art; Gaming; Pedagogy and education; and Advertising.
250 word abstracts may be submitted before 30 APRIL 2010 via email. Please include your
name and affiliation, e-mail address, postal address, phone number, and A/V requirements*
(if any). Abstracts may be sent as attachments or in the body of the email. *Please note,
A/V is limited to a TV/DVD.
Please direct inquiries and proposals to the area chair, Jessica Brown-Velez, Department of Theatre and Drama, University of Wisconsin-Madison at brownvelez@wisc.edu. More information on the conference may be found at http://www.mpcaaca.org.
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.