Northwestern faculty and alumni made an impressive turnout at the 47th International Traditional Music World Conference and the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Worldwide Diaspora (ASWAD) held in Ghana this summer. The world music conference in Accra featured a panel, “Antagonistic Moves Towards Activism and Militarism: Gendr and Its Resonances in Popular Dance Music in Syria, Nigeria, and Turke” comprising NU scholars: Dotun Ayobade (School of Communications), who presented a paper, “Killin Dem”: Masculinity and Ambivalent Activism in Burna Boy’s Stagecraft,” Shayna Silverstein (School of Communications), who presented “And if We Die, We Die by Dancing”: Masculinity, Militarism, and Social Dance in the Syrian War; and Olabanke Oyinkansola Goriola (graduate student, performance studies), who presented “Dissenting Bodies and Gender Freedom in Afrobeats: Hermes Iyele’s Dance Experiments.”
The ASWAD conference theme was “Repatriating African Studies,” held at the University of Ghana, Legon in August. Former PAS visiting scholar Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mongoué presented a paper, “Esther Dreams: Pan-African Lives, Racial Politics, and Belonging in Africa,” and alumnus Bright Gyamfi presented a paper, “Institut Africain de Développement Economique et de Planification and the Underdevelopment of Africa.” Other Northwestern faculty, alumni, and students who attended the conferences included: Esmeralda M. Kale (Herskovits Library), Sally Nuamah (human development and social policy), Bernard Forjwuor (Kellogg Institute for International Studies), Nana Akua Anyidoho (sociology, 2005 ), Dela Kuma (anthropology, 2023), Kofi Asante (history, 2016), David Donkor (performance studies, 2008), Delali Kumavie (English, 2020), Fortunate Ekwuruke (graduate student, human development and social policy), and Augustin Fosu (economics, 1977).