Every year Wesleyan hosts exciting talks, concerts, and other events related to the study of Africa and its diasporas.
Check back for more upcoming events!
Spring 2022 Events
January 20
Love of Stone Houses: Urban Merchants and Material Culture on Africa's Gold Coast
Hermann W. von Hesse, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate, Rice University
January 24
Glass and glass bead in medieval Ile-Ife, Nigeria: art, technology, and production
Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, PhD
Andrew W Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the British Museum, UK
January 26
‘Exit of a Hero:’ Ikenga sculptures and evolving concepts of Igbo heroism and achievements in the visual culture of funeral
Okechukwu Nwafor
Professor of Fine and Applied Arts, Nnamdi Azikiwe University
January 31
Meaning-Changing Artefacts in Muslim West Africa: A Case from the Greater Senegambia (15th to 19th centuries)
Thiago H. Mota
Professor of African History - Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil
Fulbright Visiting Scholar - University of Pennsylvania, US
February 2
Community Artistic Engagement with Colonial Artefacts in Nigeria
George Emeka Agbo
Professor of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka
February 11
Nobuntu Live In Concert!
Crowell Concert Hall
For tickets go to https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2022/02-2022/02112022-nobuntu.html
For more about this acapella singing group comprised of five women from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, see http://www.nobuntu-music.com
February 24
Virtual Colloquium: Black Sounds Matter —Intersectional (Re)connections of African and African American Musics
Featuring Prof. John Dankwa
For information about joining online go to: https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2022/02-2022/02242022-bsm-colloquium.html?utm_source=salesforce_email&utm_medium=EMLET&utm_campaign=NEW_AC_Hatch-Bruce
April 11th
Health and Science Research in Africa: A lunchtime conversation with Prof. Henry Meriki
Check back for a link to reserve your spot!
May 3rd
African Pop Music Concert
8pm in Crowell Concert Hall
https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2022/05-2022/05032022-african-pop-music-concert.html
May 6th
African Studies Spring Celebration
West African Dance and Drumming Performances
*New* West African Repertory Performance
4:30pm Crowell Concert Hall
https://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2022/05-2022/05062022-west-african-drumming.html
African Studies Spring Celebration Dinner
TBA
Fall 2021 Events
September
9/28 Naked Agency: A Novel Reading of Genital Cursing with Naminata Diabate (Cornell U.)
9/29 HIV and tuberculosis co-infections in Southwestern Cameroon: Genetic diversity and drug resistance with Henri Meriki (University of Buea and Wesleyan U.) (sponsored by Biology and MB&B)
October
10/20 Malawian Youth, Hip-Hop, and Politics with Ken Junior Lipenga (University of Malawi and Wesleyan U.)
November
11/3 African Studies Open House!
11/11 MATATU: Oral History and Popular Transportation in Nairobi, Distinguished Lecture with Kenda Mutongi (MIT) (Sponsored by the History Dept.)
11/19 Blurring the Surface dance performance choreographed by Iddrisu Saaka (Wesleyan U.)
December
12/4 West African Drumming and Dance Performance 7pm in Crowell Concert Hall
Check back for more upcoming events!
Spring 2021 Events
African Studies Open House
Friday, April 9th, Noon EST
Learn about:
- African Studies Course and Faculty
- The African Studies Minor
- The Christopher Brodigan Award (for graduating seniors and recent graduates)
May 4th at 4:30pm EST
"Masked Dancers and Praises for Mother Mary: A Nubian Wall Painting and Its Implications for Pre-Modern Critial Race Studies"
Andrea Achi, Metropolitan Museum of Art
This talk is part of a year-long series with scholars working at the intersections of Art History and Critical Race Studies.
Register for the Zoom link here: https://www.wesleyan.edu/art/arthist/RaceArtHistory.html
March 31st at 4:30pm EST
“Penned by Encounter: Central Africans, Capuchin Friars, and Their Images in Early Modern Kongo and Angola”
Cécile Fromont, Associate Professor, Department of the History of Art, Yale University
This talk is part of a year-long series with scholars working at the intersections of Art History and Critical Race Studies.
Register for the Zoom link here: https://www.wesleyan.edu/art/arthist/RaceArtHistory.html
Bernardino da Vezza d’Asti, The Missionary, before entering a locality, is welcomed by the ruler accompanied by his entourage, ca. from 1750. Watercolor on paper, 19.5 x 28 cm. From “Missione in prattica: Padri cappucini ne Regni di Congo, Angola, et adiacenti.” Turin, Biblioteca civica Centrale, MS 457, 9v. Photograph courtesy of the Biblioteca civica Centrale, Torino.
Fall 2020
Akwaaba Wes!
African Studies Welcomes the Wesleyan Community Back to Campus with West African Music and Dance.
Please join us for live student performances and a welcome message from the African Students' Association. Featuring solos by Professor Iddi Saaka and Professor John Dankwa.
Akwaaba Wes!
Friday, September 25th @ 4pm
Rugby Practice Field (Intersection of Long Lane and Wadsworth Street near the solar array)
This event is limited to the Wesleyan campus community. Please wear your mask and respect physical distancing protocols
Max event capacity is 50
Want to join virtually? Video of Akwaaba Wes will be posted on the African Studies@Wes Facebook Page
African Studies thanks the Provost, the Fries Center for Global Studies, the Freeman Athletic Center, and Facilities staff members for their support in organizing this event.
Past Year's Events
The refugee experience
Marius Kothor, Yale University
Wednesday, October 30. 12.15-1.15, PAC 002. Pizza lunch will be provided
Marius Kothor will highlight her experiences growing up as a refugee in West Africa. She will examine the intricacies of the refugee resettlement process and demonstrate how the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the number of refugees resettled in the US will leave thousands of families in a state of peril.
Marius Kothor is a Ph.D. student in the Department of History at Yale, where she is researching women's political and economic contributions to Togo’s independence movement, and how Togo's anti-colonial struggle informed African American discourses on African decolonization movements.
Marius's family fled political violence in Togo in the early 1990s. They lived as refugees in Benin for seven years before being resettled in upstate New York. Through her research Marius is examining how the legacies of colonialism have shaped her life and the lives of many African people today. On October 2 she published an oped in the New York Times; “Trump is trying to kill the program that saved my life.”
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SPRING 2015
March
Women, Rice and War: WW II and Anti-colonial Politics in Abeokuta, Nigeria
Judith Byfield
Associate Professor of History at Cornell University
Judith Byfield is an Associate Professor of History at Cornell University and a former President of the African Studies Association. Recently she co-edited Africa and World War II (Cambridge, 2015) and is also the author of The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria (2002). This event is sponsored by African Studies, the History Department, and Academic Affairs.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
6:00P.M.
Venue: PAC 002
April
African Studies Open House!
Friday, April 1, 2016
Noon
Venue: PAC 422
Christopher Brodigan Award Info Session
Monday, April 4, 2016
4:30 P.M.
Venue: PAC 422
Creative Africa: An African Studies Workshop (4/28-4/29)
Join us to celebrate student work and the new African Studies minor!
Thursday, April 28
Opening Lecture
4:15 pm in PAC 002
“Coming to America: The History and Explosion of a West African Film Industry”
A talk by Dr. Kaia Shivers on Nollywood and the American Diaspora
Dr. Shivers is a scholar of diversity in digital medias and film with special emphasis on Nollywood (the Nigerian Film Industry) and Diaspora audiences. She holds a Ph.D. from the School of Communication and Information from Rutgers University.
Friday, April 29 (all events in PAC 002)
Student Presentations
Panel 1
3:00 “Edom: Negotiating Gender through Musical Play in Southern Ghana,” Adwoa Arhine
(Ph.D. Candidate, Ethnomusicology)
3:30 “Mau Mau Remembered: How Narratives Transform and Reflect Power and Identity in
Kenya,” Teresa Paterson (History and African Studies Minor)
Break
Panel 2
4:15 “Stigma and Its Consequences: Syphilis, Prostitution, and Perceptions of Health in
Colonial Algeria,” Valere Demuynck (History and French Studies)
4:30 “Echoes of Caliban’s Curse: An Exploration of the Legacy of Negritude,” Chando Mapoma
(CSS, French)
Prof. Twagira with Teresa Paterson, Valere Demuynck, Chando Mapoma, and Adwoa Arhine
Film Screening
6:00 pm
October 1
A thriller set in 1960s Nigeria. A police detective is dispatched to investigate a string of murders of women in a small community. Written by Tunde Babalola and Directed Kunle Afolayan
May
Adzenyah Retirement Ceremony
Saturday, May 7, 2016 at 4:00pm
Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall (former Rehearsal Hall)
FREE!
After 46 years of teaching at Wesleyan, master drummer Abraham Adzenyah, Adjunct Professor of Music, Retired, is being honored with the naming of the Abraham Adzenyah Rehearsal Hall. This is the first time that a major United States university is naming a building after a traditional African musician.
Click here for a full description
Traditional West African Drumming, Singing, and Dancing
Saturday, May 7, 2016 at 4:30pm
CFA Courtyard
FREE!
Master drummer Abraham Adzenyah, Adjunct Professor of Music, Retired, returns for a farewell concert and reunion featuring past and present students. Wesleyan University's West African Drumming and Dance Ensemble, Tufts University's Kiniwe Ensemble with the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Kekeli African Music and Dance Ensemble, Berklee College of Music's West African Drum and Dance Ensemble, Montclair State University's West African Drumming and Dance Ensemble with the Rhythm Monsters, and Ayanda Clarke '99 and the Fadara Group, featuring Asase Yaa will perform a free concert in the CFA Courtyard.
Click here for a full description
Fall 2015
September
Refugee or Migrant? The European Crisis in Historical Perspective
Sponsored by the Department of History
Panelists: Bruce Masters (History); Marguerite Nguyen (English); Peter Rutland (Government); Laura Ann Twagira (History)
Thursday 9/17 @ noon in PAC 002
Chartwell Dutiro in Concert "Zimbabwean Mbira Music on an International Stage"
Sponsored by the Department of Music
Wednesday, 9/23 @ 8pm in World Music Hall
Free!
October
Timbuktu film screening sponsored by the Common Ground Middletown International Film Festival
Prof. Laura Ann Twagira will introduce the film and lead and discussion following the screening
Tuesday 10/27 @ 7pm off campus at Middlesex Community Collge in Chapman Hall
http://www.russelllibrary.org/reference/MIFF.html
Free!
November
46 Years of Adzenyah at Wesleyan: West African Drumming and its Role in Liberal Arts Education
Saturday, 11/7 @ 3pm in CFA Hall
FREE!
http://www.wesleyan.edu/cfa/events/2015/11-2015/11072015-46-years-of-adzenyah-at-wesleyan.html
Chibok's Girls and the Challenge of Feminist Activisms in Nigeria
Prof. Abosede George (Barnard College)
Wednesday, 11/11 @ 6pm in the Vanguard Lounge, CAAS
Sponsored by African Studies, the Department of History, FGSS, and Academic Affairs
December
West African Drumming and Dance Concert
Featuring students in the courses West African Music and Culture & West African Dance (all levels)
Friday 12/4 @ 8:00pm in Crowell Concert Hall