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 2024 Events 

Space Law 101: International Drama, Orbital Debris, and the Struggle for Equal Access

Dr. Timiebi Aganaba

Wednesday, March 6

5:00 pm

PAC 100

 Poster for Space Law 101 event

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Public Health Microbiologist Dr Henry Meriki

A Cameroonian Scholar's Personal and Professional Journey Through Uncertain Times

Thursday, March 30

4:30-5:30

Fisk 121

Henry Meriki

 

 

Global Education Speaker Series

Mamadou Ly, Director, ARED

The College of Education Studies is inviting you to join us along with our co-sponsors, the Fries Center for Global Studies, the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life and the University Human Rights Network for the fourth Global Education Speaker in our series! We welcome Mamadou Ly who will speak about National Languages and language rights in Senegal.
 
Wednesday, March 29- noon-1:00 at the Fries Center in Fisk 201.   Lunch will be served.  To join by Zoom: https://wesleyan.zoom.us/j/98427845104
Mamadou Ly

 

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

3:30pm CFA Courtyard

 *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)

 African Studies Open House April 9

 

 

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.

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.   

Akwaaba Wes!

 

Past Year's Events

 

The refugee experience

Marius Kothor, Yale University

pic_Marius-Kothor.jpg

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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African-Studies_Human-Rights-Poster.jpg

 

 

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

Women at protest rally in Abeokuta, Nigeria

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