By LaRay Denzer, PAS editor of newsletter and working papers
Our PAS community, comprising faculty, graduate students, staff, and alumni, actively participated in the 67th annual African Studies Association meeting in Chicago in mid-December 2024. The event’s theme, “Global Africa,” provided a platform for participants to recenter the continent and its peoples in global discourses. Their discussions on development, decolonization, peace and security, racism, knowledge production, gender equality, human rights, climate change, and the overall interpretation of African issues were not just contributions, but active shaping of these global conversations. A central focus was the role of African youth, who now constitute sixty percent of the continent’s population, making the continent’s population the youngest in the world. Youth play a prominent role in shaping global conversations about social justice, democracy, development, decolonization, technology, migration, popular cultures, scientific innovation, and local and international policies.
Northwestern faculty, graduate students, and staff played prominent roles in the meeting. Akin Ogundiran (history), Sean Hanretta (history), and Meagan Keefe (PAS) served on the local organizing committee. Two important roundtables highlighted the contributions of eminent PAS members to the development of African studies: “Jane Guyer and Africa,” cochaired by historians David Schoenbrun and Akinwumi Ogundiran; and “Mixing, Moving, Making, Meaning: The Contributions of David L. Schoenbrun to African History, chaired by alumni Rhiannon Stephens (Columbia University). The recent publication of Dotun Ayobade (performance studies) was discussed in an Author Meets Critic roundtable that reflected on the methodology and significance of his new book, Queens of Afrobeat: Women, Play, and Fela Kuti’s Music Rebellion.
Faculty participated in panels and roundtables. Noelle Sullivan (global health and anthropology) presented a paper, “The Dilemmas of Global Health Detritus: Unintended Consequences of Hospital Donations in Tanzania. Professor Emeritus Richard Joseph chaired the group presentation, “AfricaNow! Collaborative Learning and the Postcolonial Predicament;” Sarah Dimick (English) took part in the roundtable “Byron Santangelo and Environmental Justice in Africa;” Sally Afia Nuamah (human development and social policy) took part in the discussion of Dotun Ayobade’s book Queens of Afrobeat and joined Ayobade in the roundtable, “Lower Frequencies and Global Africa(s): Authenticity and Circulation in Afrobeats, Chicago House, and Hip Hop.” Peter Mwangi (Swahili) chaired the panel, “Charting Pathsmto Equity in Higher Education: Access for Success;” Rebecca Shereikis (ISITA associate director) chaired the roundtable, “Building Maktaba: Reflections on a West African Arabic Manuscript Translation and Access Project (see p.10) and chaired the panel “Historical Narrative Construction in Two West African Kingdoms.” Akin Ogundiran (history) chaired the panel, “African Histories Examined through Ritual Archives;” and also took part in the Author Meets Critic discussion of Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery, by Ana Lucia Araujo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024). Rebecca Shereikis (ISITA associate director) Professor Emeritus David Schoenbrun (history) participated in the roundtable, “How Should I Write This,” Robert Launay (anthropology) and LaRay Denzer (PAS) participated in the reflection on the career of Jane Guyer. Sean Hanretta (history) served as a discussant on the panel, “Islam, Welfare and Charity in Africa.”
Faculty members from Northwestern University in Qatar took part in panels. Zachary Wright presented two papers: “The Portrait of the Prophet Muḥammad in the Poetry of Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse;” and “Scholars and Sultans in the Seventeenth-Century Tārīkh Ibn al-Mukhtār. Gerard Akindes presented with Peter Alegi (Michigan State University) a paper, “Afrobelgian Football History Matters.” In addition, Qatar faculty Clovis Bergere and Ibrahim Abusharif presented a papers, “Youth as Digital Infrastructure: Radical Openings, Shutdowns, and Momentums,” and “Embodied Knowledge and Digital Affordances: Challenges to Traditional Pedagogy in Senegal.”
Several students, both graduate and undergraduate, presented papers: Umar Yandaki (history), “History Wars in Katsina Emirate: Royal Historiographies and the Politics of Legitimacy;” and Austin Bryan (anthropology), “Stigmatized as ‘Promoting Homosexuality’ with a Duty to Report: Public Healthcare Workers Providing Services to Criminalized ‘Key Populations for HIV’ Under Uganda’s 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act.” Undergraduate students Beckett Sands (psychology and mathematics) and Gideon Pardo (journalism and managing editor at North by Northwestern) also presented a paper “Modernizing STEM Education in Rwanda: The Triumphs and Challenges of Rapid Change.”
Many PAS alumni participated in a variety of ways. The new book by Aili Mari Tripp (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Joan Wicken and Her Lifelong Collaboration with Tanzania’s President Nyerere, was highlighted in an Author Meets Critic panel that discussed Tripp’s collaboration with Wicken in producing this mediated life history. Another panel considered the volume, The State, Ethnicity, and Gender in Africa Intellectual Legacies of Crawford Young, honoring Young’s career. In addition, Tripp copresented with Joana Ramos a paper, “Historical Antecedents to Women and Politics in Contemporary Mozambique,” and cochaired a panel, “Publishing on Women and Gender in Africa: From Dissertation to Book Manuscript.”
Alumnus David Donkor (Texas A & M University) presented a paper, “Ghanaian Popular Fashion, National Team Dress, and the Spectacle of Airport Arrivals in International Soccer,” Alumnus Moussa Seck (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) presented a paper, “The Representation of the Figure of “l’étranger”in Francophone Travel Writing.” Alumna Lorelle Semley (Boston College and editor of History in Africa) chaired and participated in the roundtable “How Should I Write This? Semley also participated in the Author Meet’s Critic panel that discussed the book Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery by Ana Lucia Araujo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024). Rebecca Shumway (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) and James Brennan (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) served on roundtables. Several alumni participated in the roundtable that reflected on the career of their teacher and colleague David L. Schoenbrun, including Rhiannon Stephens (Columbia University), Raevin Jimenez (University of Michigan), Neil Kodesh (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Yaari Felber-Seligman (City College of New York), and Pamela Khanakwa (Makerere University). Alumna Kathleen Sheldon chaired the panel, “Gender and Indigenous Legal Norms in Colonial Africa.”
This article originally ran in the PAS Newsletter, Spring/Winter 2025, Volume 35, Number 2.