October 2009
Zakes Mda: A Reading from and Discussion of "Cion"
This presentation is part of the Alden Library's "Fall Festival of Events" and will feature the "Cion"'s internationally famous author and Ohio University English professor, Zakes Mda, reading excerpts from his book and dialoguing with his audience. Refreshments will be served following Mda's reading and discussion at a book signing and reception just outside the second-floor theater. "Cion" is the University Common Reader for 2009-10.
Tuesday, October 27
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Baker University Center Theatre
“Easy Like Water: Reporting from the Frontline of Climate Change”
In Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, North Africa, China, and the Middle-East, water poses a relentless threat to about a billion people. With increasingly violent cyclones and accelerating glacier melt upstream, flooding may create more than 20 million “climate refugees” from Bangladesh, alone, by 2030. India is already building walls to keep Bangladeshis out.
Come and join the conversation on global climate change in these regions with Steve Sapienza, an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of global issues.
Wednesday, October 28
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM
Anderson Auditorium, Scripps Hall Room 111
Togetherness Supreme - Movie Test screening
Before coming to Ohio University, African Studies student Jason Brayda was involved with filming a movie with an organization called "Hot Sun Films." The movie, titled "Togetherness Supreme", was filmed in Kibera, a large slum in Nairobi, and deals with a lot of the political strife that surrounded the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya and how it affected so many people living in Kibera. The film is in English, Swahili, Luo, and Kikuyu, all with english subtitles. The movie is now in the post production stage and has been sent to several people around the world to have preview test screenings. Here are some links if you need more information about the film and Hot Sun Films. Company Website: Http://www.hotsunfilms.com Togetherness Supreme Blog: Http://kiberakid.blogspot.com The Ogiek Project Blog: Http://protectorsoftheforest.blogspot.com Kibera Film School: Http://kiberafilmschool.blogspot.com For more information contact Jason Brayda at: pb130009@ohio.edu
Wednesday, October 28
8:00 - 9:30 PM
Baker Center Theatre
African Studies at Noon
Graduate Student Spree MacDonald will present at this week's African Studies at noon series. His presentation is entitled: "Trajectories of Black Consciousness in Contemporary South African Literature and Performance"
Thursday, October 29
12:00 noon
Multi-Cultural Center, 2nd Floor Baker University Center
Disabilities in Rwanda After the Genocide
Debbie Elder, who works with Partners in Conservation, will speak on how Rwandans with disabilities were perceived before and after the 1994 genocide. The presentation is hosted by the Minority Affairs Commission of Student Senate in celebration of Disability Awareness Month.
Thursday, October 29
7:00 PM
Baker University Center Theatre
Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Alden Library there is a display on the first floor of African Textiles and Dress titled "Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress -- Beyond Aesthetics." A display of how cloth is used in Africa to enhance and communicate cultural values towards ethnicity, gender, life stages, status and authority.
Alden Library
First Floor
on-going
Swahili Table
Swahili speakers - we'd like your feedback! Conversation has started about launching a Swahili forum for speakers of Swahili who would like a forum to practice speaking Swahili. This will be a weekly meeting open to faculty, staff and other people interested in retaining their Swahili through constant interaction. It will be open to students who have had at least completed advanced Swahili. The launching of this forum will depend of whether people are interested. This will be separate from the Swahili Conversation hour, which takes place every other week. Please contact Peter Githinji if you are interested <githinji@ohio.edu>.
African Children's Choir
The African Children's Choir is returning to Athens! The choir, made up of children from Uganda and Kenya will be performing this week. Founded in 1984, the African Children's Choir exists to show the world the beauty, dignity and unlimited ability of the African Child.
Wednesday, October 21
7:00 PM
New Life Assembly of God (10 S. Green Drive)
African Studies Social
This Friday the African Studies program invites you to a social hour. We will meet on the 2nd floor of Yamada house. This will be a great opportunity for faculty and students to meet in an informal venue. We will welcome Usman Ladan, visiting scholar from Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria. Refreshments will be provided.
Friday, October 23
3:00
Yamada House 2nd floor
“Easy Like Water: Reporting from the Frontline of Climate Change”
In Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, North Africa, China, and the Middle-East, water poses a relentless threat to about a billion people. With increasingly violent cyclones and accelerating glacier melt upstream, flooding may create more than 20 million “climate refugees” from Bangladesh, alone, by 2030. India is already building walls to keep Bangladeshis out.
Come and join the conversation on global climate change in these regions with Steve Sapienza, an award-winning news and documentary producer who has covered a wide range of global issues.
Wednesday, October 28
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM
Anderson Auditorium, Scripps Hall Room 111
Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Alden Library there is a display on the first floor of African Textiles and Dress titled "Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress -- Beyond Aesthetics." A display of how cloth is used in Africa to enhance and communicate cultural values towards ethnicity, gender, life stages, status and authority.
Alden Library
First Floor
on-going
Swahili Table
Swahili speakers - we'd like your feedback! Conversation has started about launching a Swahili forum for speakers of Swahili who would like a forum to practice speaking Swahili. This will be a weekly meeting open to faculty, staff and other people interested in retaining their Swahili through constant interaction. It will be open to students who have had at least completed advanced Swahili. The launching of this forum will depend of whether people are interested. This will be separate from the Swahili Conversation hour, which takes place every other week. Please contact Peter Githinji if you are interested <githinji@ohio.edu>.
African Studies at Noon
This week's African Studies at noon lecture will be by Dr. Wendy Wilson-Fall, Associate Professor of the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University. Her research focus is on trans-regional and transnational movements and how they affect family sustainability, community, and cultural practice, particularly in the context of increasingly interwoven global networks. While she continues to explore these issues among pastoral herding communities such as the Wodaabe and other Fulani (Fulbe) groups, she currently is working on these questions in the context of early African American families of Malagasy descent. In this research, she explores the overlapping networks of eighteenth and nineteenth century Indian Ocean and Atlantic Worlds which led to the forced migration of Malagasy slaves as well as the voluntary movement of free Malagasy immigrants via shipping and other trade activities. Her talk will focus on these two research projects and how they relate to her interest in theories of marginality, identity, mobility, caste and class.
Thursday, October 15
12:00
Mutli-Cultural Center, Baker Center
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FORUM AND WORLD FOOD DAY FOOD DRIVE
Friday, October 16 is WORLD FOOD DAY. Tom Smucker, Director of International Development Studies and visiting Assistant Professor of Geography, will present Food Security and Environmental Change in East Africa. Smucker is part of an award-winning team of researchers that is concerned with the role of local knowledge in rural livelihood systems and the implications for climate change adaptation in East African dryland communities. In observance of World Food Day, non-perishable food items will be collected at the Forum and can also be donated all week in Yamada International House, ISFS (Baker Center 348) and the Office of Education Abroad (Lindley 185).
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16
3-4 p.m.
Walter Hall 145
Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Alden Library there is a display on the first floor of African Textiles and Dress titled "Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress -- Beyond Aesthetics." A display of how cloth is used in Africa to enhance and communicate cultural values towards ethnicity, gender, life stages, status and authority.
Alden Library
First Floor
on-going
Swahili Table
Swahili speakers - we'd like your feedback! Conversation has started about launching a Swahili forum for speakers of Swahili who would like a forum to practice speaking Swahili. This will be a weekly meeting open to faculty, staff and other people interested in retaining their Swahili through constant interaction. It will be open to students who have had at least completed advanced Swahili. The launching of this forum will depend of whether people are interested. This will be separate from the Swahili Conversation hour, which takes place every other week. Please contact Peter Githinji if you are interested <githinji@ohio.edu>.
African Children's Choir
The African Children's Choir is returning to Athens! The African Children’s Choir™ is made up of some of the most vulnerable children in their countries. Many have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease. The African Children’s Choir™ helps these children break away from the everyday cycle of poverty and hopelessness. This group of children come from Uganda.
Wednesday, October 21
7:00 PM
New Life Assembly of God (10 S. Green Drive)
"Prospects for Peace" Address by Somali President
The President of Somalia, HE Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, will present a lecture at the Columbus Convention Center. This event is co-sponsored by African Studies and the Columbus Council on World Affairs. The event will be webcast on the following website: <http://www.african.ohio.edu/webcast/>. We will also show the webcast in the Yamada House Seminar room.
Wednesday, October 7
8:30 AM
What's Working for Kids in Africa?
The Institute for the African Child introduces a new lecture series! This takes the place of our annual conference. The first lecture of the series is "Up from the Grassroots: How community-based orphan care becomes national policy," by Dr. Kristen Cheney, Asst. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Dayton. Dr. Cheney's work centers on children's survival strategies amidst difficult circumstances in Eastern and Southern Africa. As a Fulbright 2008-9 Africa Regional Research Scholar, She has been conducting collaborative ethnographic research with children affected by HIV/AIDS to better understand how they tap into various community and international resources, in order to ensure their own survival. Reception will follow.
Friday, October 9
2:00 - 4:00 PM
Bentley Hall 233
Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress
To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Alden Library there is a display on the first floor of African Textiles and Dress titled "Wrapped in Culture: African Textiles and Dress -- Beyond Aesthetics." A display of how cloth is used in Africa to enhance and communicate cultural values towards ethnicity, gender, life stages, status and authority.
Alden Library
First Floor
on-going
Swahili Table
Swahili speakers - we'd like your feedback! Conversation has started about launching a Swahili forum for speakers of Swahili who would like a forum to practice speaking Swahili. This will be a weekly meeting open to faculty, staff and other people interested in retaining their Swahili through constant interaction. It will be open to students who have had at least completed advanced Swahili. The launching of this forum will depend of whether people are interested. This will be separate from the Swahili Conversation hour, which takes place every other week. Please contact Peter Githinji if you are interested <githinji@ohio.edu>.
Run to Empower 5K
Runners from across the state will unite in Athens on Oct. 10 for the 2nd Annual 5K Run to Empower, with proceeds to benefit The Empower Campaign. The money raised from Run to Empower will be used to rebuild Bigodi Nursery and Primary School, which was decimated by a storm in November 2008. Reconstruction has already begun on the school, and the foundation for the first classroom is in place.
The five-kilometer (3.1 miles) Run to Empower will start at 12:00 p.m. (noon) on Oct. 10, 2009 at the Ping Recreation Center on Ohio University’s campus. Registration is $15, and runners are encouraged to pre-register online at www.empowercampaign.org. All registered runners will receive a Run to Empower race t-shirt and will be entered in race-day raffles. Runners who register online can also get sponsors. This year, the runner who raises the most funds through their online sponsor page will receive a Nintento Wii and their name on Bigodi Nursery and Primary School.
Saturday, October 10
12:00 Noon
Ping Recreation center
African Children's Choir
The African Children's Choir is returning to Athens! The African Children’s Choir™ is made up of some of the most vulnerable children in their countries. Many have lost one or both parents to poverty or disease. The African Children’s Choir™ helps these children break away from the everyday cycle of poverty and hopelessness. This group of children come from Uganda.
Wednesday, October 21
7:00 PM
New Life Assembly of God (10 S. Green Drive)
African Studies Lectures at Noon
The brown bag series is now the "African Studies Lectures at Noon" series! This week's presenters are Domoina Rakotoson and Maria Hering. They will be talking about the research they are conducting Dr. Nancy Stevens
Thursday, October 1
12:00 PM
Mutli-Cultural Center
Dance Workshop for Kids
Prior to the Moving Bodies concert, a member of Azaguno and Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble will provide one free dance workshop each at Arts West. Workshops will be for elementary aged school children. Please contact Emily Prince at Arts West by Wednesday if you plan to attend (740-592-4315).
Saturday, October 3
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
MOVING BODIES
Euro-African Contemporary Dance Concert
transforming the way we see dance
An Evening of European and African Contemporary Dance featuring, Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble from Basel, Switzerland and Azaguno from Athens, Ohio.
Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble
Basel, Switzerland
“Cathy Sharp creates moments of suspension and through sharp lighting and directional changes catapults us suddenly into another cosmos of feelings.” -- Maya Künstler, Basellandschaftliche Zeitung
Azaguno
Athens, Ohio
“The resulting dance was an intriguing hybrid: with emotional subtext, transforming imagery and arms moving faster than the imagination” -- Lisa Cochrane, Globe and Mail (Toronto)
TICKETS
$12 General Admission, $9 For Non OU Students / FREE for All OUStudents with Valid ID
TICKET OFFICE: (740) 593-1780
Sponsors:
School of Dance, African Studies Program, Multicultural Programs,Zelma Badu-Younge, and Paschal Yao Younge.
Saturday, OCTOBER 3, 2009
7:30 PM
Templeton-Blackburn Alumni
Memorial Auditorium
African Culture Through the Art |
Nigerian Independence Day Celebration
The OU Association Of Nigerians invites you to attend our celebration of the 49th Anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence and to learn about the country’s history. We will have guest speakers who will examine our past to see how far Nigerians have progressed since their independence and how we continue to make great strides today. Taste Nigerian food, listen to great music, learn our history, and watch exciting performances. It is a free event.
Saturday, October 3rd
7:00 PM
Bromley Hall
Prospects for Peace in Somalia
The President of Somalia, HE Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, will present a lecture at the Columbus Convention Center. This event is co-sponsored by African Studies and the Columbus Council on World Affairs. If you have sent in a request to attend the event, I will get back to you as soon as we can confirm if more seats have been made available for our group. For those who can not travel to Columbus, the event will be webcast on the following website: <http://www.african.ohio.edu/webcast/>
Wednesday, October 7
8:00 AM
What's Working for Kids in Africa?
The Institute for the African Child introduces a new lecture series! The first lecture of the series is "Up from the Grassroots: How community-based orphan care becomes national policy," by Dr. Kristen Cheney, Asst. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Dayton. Dr. Cheney's work centers on children's survival strategies amidst difficult circumstances in Eastern and Southern Africa. As a Fulbright 2008-9 Africa Regional Research Scholar, She has been conducting collaborative ethnographic research with children affected by HIV/AIDS to better understand how they tap into various community and international resources, in order to ensure their own survival.
Friday, October 9
2:00 - 4:00 PM
Bentley Hall 233
September 2009
African Studies Brown Bag
The African Studies Brown bags will be every other Thursday during Fall quarter. The first brown bag is this week at 12:00. Brown bags will be held in the Multi-cultural Center's multi-purpose room in Baker Center. This week's speaker is Joe Venosa, PhD student in African history.
Thursday, September 17
12:00
Multi-cultural Center, Baker University Center
Non-Violent Peace Building in the Middle East
The Muslim Students Association invites you to a presentation on the topic: Non-violent peace building in the Middle East
Speakers: Art Gish and Peggy Gish
Snacks will be provided
Date: September 24, 2009
Venue: Baker Center Ballroom
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm
AFRICAN STUDIES UPDATE
Welcome to fall quarter! This weekly update will be sent out on Tuesdays throughout the quarter. If you have information you would like included, please send it to me by Monday. Events will also be available on the calendar on the African Studies website <www.african.ohio.edu>
African Studies Welcome Reception - Slideshow
Join us in welcoming new African Studies faculty, staff and students! The annual African Studies reception will be this
Sunday, September 13
4:00 PM.
71 Maplewood Dr. (Steve Howard's home)
African Studies Association (OU Chapter)
The African Studies Association will have their first meeting of the quarter this Thursday. They will discuss the upcoming annual ASA conference in New Orleans in addition to offering advice to first year students, discussing ASA events at OU this year etc. The ASA serves to represent a diverse group interested in Africa and its people and other interested student organizations at Ohio University. To foster the study of Africa, to support research of Africa by all interested parties, and promoting collaboration among Africanists.
Thursday, October 10
7pm
Alden library Room 403
African Student Union
The African Student Union will hold the first general body meeting this week. They will be discussing the annual fall quarter "Crossover" event.
Saturday, September 12
8:00 - 9:00
Baker Center, rm 231
Forum on South African World Cup
The Bokamoso Leadership Forum is hosting "South Africa 2010: Global event or African event?" This forum seeks to reflect and embrace the meaning of South Africa 2010 and also find ways to convey pride in having an African country hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world. BLF will be hosting this forum in partnership with the Sports in Africa conference.
Saturday, September 26
Time and Location TBA
Moving Bodies: Euro-African Contemporary Dance Concert
Come for an evening of European and African Dance - transforming the way we see dance. Performances by the Cathy Sharp Dance Ensemble from Basel, Switzerland and Azaguno from Athens, OH.
FREE for Ohio University Studenets
$12 for general public
$9 for non-OU students
Saturday, October 3
7:30 PM
Memorial Auditorium
What's Working for Kids in Africa?
The Institute for the African Child introduces a new lecture series! The first lecture of the series is "Up from the Grassroots: How community-based orphan care becomes national policy," by Dr. Kristen Cheney, Asst. Professor of Anthropology at the University of Dayton. Dr. Cheney's work centers on children's survival strategies amidst difficult circumstances in Eastern and Southern Africa. As a Fulbright 2008-9 Africa Regional Research Scholar, She has been conducting collaborative ethnographic research with children affected by HIV/AIDS to better understand how they tap into various community and international resources, in order to ensure their own survival.
Friday, October 9
2:00 - 4:00 PM
Bentley Hall 233