The African Activist Association at UCLA presents their fifth annual conference on May 14-15, featuring African dance and drumming, spoken word, a film screening of A Slice of Fela, and excellent panel presentations.

Saturday, May 15, 2010
9:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Neuroscience Research Bldg. Auditorium (NRB)
635 Charles E. Young Drive, South
(Corner of Charles E. Young Dr. South & Structure 9)
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Senegalese dance and drumming by Baye Fall Yi – recently performing onstage with Baaba Maal – excellent, informative presentations, film screening of the latest documentary on Fela Kuti, A Slice of Fela – the African Activist Association conference promises to be another great event this year!

Friday, May 14  --  5:30 pm - 9:30 PM
Saturday, May 15  --  9:30 am – 4:30 PM

Schedule:
(Subject to change)

Friday, May 14, 2010

• 5:30 PM:  Reception
• 6:15 PM:  Baye Fall Yi -- Senegalese Dance and Drum Troupe
• 6:45 PM:  Keynote Address by Myralyn O. A. Nartey, Doctoral Student, UCLA School of Public Health
• 7:15 PM:  Spoken Word Performances
• 8:00 – 9:30 PM:  A Slice of Fela Film Screening - documentary featuring amazing in-concert footage and more of the great Fela Kuti!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

9:30 AM:  Continental Breakfast

10:15 – 11:15 AM:  Panel I: Violence, Immigration and the State

Moderator:  Ghislaine Lydon, UCLA Department of History

Ann Anaebere, UCLA School of Nursing
“Concept Analysis: Exploring Health Consideration for Aging Nigerian Immigrants in the United States”

Diana Burnett, Yale Divinity School
“Interrogating the Interstices of Race, Religion & Health in a Transnational Context”

Marvin Boateng, California Lutheran University
“The New Progress Philosophy: Addressing Development and Psychology from the Traditional Perspective”

 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM:  Panel II: Gender, Violence and Sexuality

Moderator:  Nandini Gunewardena, International Development Studies, International Institute

Amber Murrey-Ndewa, Syracuse University
“A Myth of Benign Humanitarianism, Militarism and Women’s Rights: A Case Study of the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline”

Dayo Spencer, UCLA School of Public Health
“Relating Modernity, Conflict and Sexual Violence: Discourses of Violence against Women in Post-war Sierra Leone”

Kristina Benson, UCLA Islamic Studies
“North African Women in Madrid: Intersections of Race, Religion and Gender and the 2004 Law Against Gender Violence”

Tina Beyene, UCLA Department of Women’s Studies
“Transnational and Postcolonial Feminist Interpretations of Gender- based Violence in Conflict Zones”

Rayed Khedher, UCLA Department of Anthropology
“Tracing the Development of the Code of Personal Status: The Tunisian Case”

1:00 PM:  Lunch

2:00 – 3:00 PM:  Panel III: Art, Activism and Music

Moderator:  Damola Osnulu, PhD student, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures

Christopher Mlalazi, Villa Aurora “Writer in Exile” Feuchtwanger Fellow
“The State and the Performing Arts in Zimbabwe—Friends or Foe?”

Natasha Himmelman, University of Cape Town
“Hating the Postcolony Properly: Hip Hop Aesthetics in Kenya”

Amber Reed, UCLA Department of Anthropology
“Creating New Leaders: Youth Involvement in Community Activism in South Africa”

3:15 – 4:30 PM:  Panel IV: Navigating Space, Culture and Nationalism

Duncan Yoon, UCLA Department of Comparative Literature
“Space and Time in Socialist Tanzania: The Dodoma Capital Project”

Kim Foulds, UCLA School of Education
“A Conflicted Curriculum Students’ Perceptions of Gender in Kenyan Social Studies Textbooks

Tiffany Man, UCLA International Development Studies
“Chinese Presence in Africa: Trade, Investment, Diplomatic and Cultural Ties”

Willis Oyugi, UCLA Department of History
“Human–Wildlife Conflicts and Maasai Group Ranches in Kenya”

4:30 PM:  Closing Ceremony

We hope you can join us!!

Abstracts and speakers’ bios attached.

The African Activists Association gratefully appreciates its co-sponsors.

• Nnamdi Moweta of Radio Afrodicia, KPFK 90.7 FM
• UCLA African Studies Center

Conference Goal:

The goal of this conference is to gather new scholarship on the continent of Africa that challenges the frames of reference as to how Africa is viewed both at home and abroad.  Tribulations on the continent of Africa are often posed in generic and static terms that do not fully appreciate the complexity of the historical roots that underlie them.  As a continent continuously misrepresented in both popular and non-popular mediums of communication, this conference will function as a space of re-presentation of the voices and histories of the seldom heard.  This is a space of creative scholarship that will bring together a wide-range of topics that proffer new vision and resolution.

In Peace,
The African Activist Association

About The African Activist Association, UCLA
The African Activist Association at UCLA is committed to generating cultural and political awareness about Africa and its diasporas. We achieve this by organizing annual student colloquiums that bring together new scholarship pertaining to various topics on the countries of Africa. We organize quarterly African Film Screenings, Spoken Word and Performance Art benefits, gallery exhibitions, and other means through which we seek to counter some of the misrepresentations of Africa and the world in general in popular media.

Visit our blog at http://africanactivists.blogspot.com/

Pay-by-space and all-day ($10) parking available.

Cost : Free and open to the public; everyone welcome!

www.international.ucla.edu/africa

Download file: African Activists Association Abstracts 5-7-10.pdf

Sponsor(s): African Studies Center, African Activist Association at UCLA, Nnamdi Moweta of Radio Afrodicia, KPFK 90.7 FM.