Contemporary Ethiopia: Revolution and Transformation?
Edmond Keller, Gayle Smith, Marcia Thomas, Berhanu Abegaz, and Sosina Demissie examine significant events in contemporary Ethiopia. This special forum complements the Fowler Museum exhibition, "Painting Ethiopia: the Art of Adamu Tesfaw," which runs from March 6 to September 18, 2005.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM
Fowler Museum of Cultural HIstory
Westwood and Sunset Blvd.
UCLA campus
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Guests are encouraged to view the exhibition as well as the photographic exhibition “Ethiopian Crossroads: Photographs of a Land and Its People.” Arrive early or stay late and enjoy these excellent exhibitions (Fowler Saturday hours are 12 - 5 PM).
Panelists:
EDMOND KELLER
“Governance, Citizenship, and National Identity”
ULCA Professor of Political Science, Director of the Globalization Research Center-Africa
Keller specializes in comparative politics with an emphasis on Ethiopia. He was an observer of the 1992 Ethiopian elections and the author of Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People’s Republic.
GAYLE SMITH
“Ethiopia: A Perspective from Here and There”
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress
(Senior Director for African Affairs, National Security Council under President Clinton)
Smith was special assistant to the president and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton adminstiration. She negotiated a ceasefire between Uganda and Rwanda as well as a peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
BERHANU ABEGAZ
“The Paradox of Ethiopia’s Under-development”
Professor of Economics, College of William and Mary
Abegaz specializes in regional economic integration, comparative economics, and development economics. His work encompasses wide-ranging issues including the role of diversified business groups in emerging economies, the challenges facing African industrialization, and poverty traps in Ethiopia’s agrarian system.
MARCIA THOMAS
“Popular Culture and the Ethiopian Famine of 1984”
Executive Director, USA for Africa
Thomas is a development specialist and has worked for development organizations including Oxfam America. She was at the forefront of the international response to the 1984 Ethiopian famine. In addition to the “We Are the World” project, she has also been associated with other big project events such as Hands Across America, the 1984 Olympic Games and the Jubilee 2000 Debt Relief Campaign.
SOSINA DEMISSIE
“The Missing Link: Women and Ethiopia's Development”
Demissie recently concluded a study for Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) on women and coping with poverty. She specializes on agriculture and rural development with focus on gender and development. She was a gender officer with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and is the author of various reports for the UNDP, the World Bank, and other international organizations.
Forum
The forum will survey Ethiopia’s tumultuous recent past with a discussion of significant milestones of the last thirty years. Topics covered will include the revolution of 1974 and the transition from the Derge to the EPRDF coalition. Issues such as ethnic federalism, land tenure and decentralization will be discussed, as well as the impact and effect of these policies on the nation, society, and the environment. Panelists will examine the changing dynamics of famine and famine relief including the highly publicized 1984 famine and subsequent pop aid movement. Discussions will examine if famine in Ethiopia is purely an environmental crisis or a manifestation of social, political and economic policies. Presentations will cover a variety of issues such as contemporary Ethiopian history, food security, regime change, and the age old question of nationalities with panelists offering forecasts and predications for the future.
Painting Ethiopia Exhibition
Vivid paintings of rural and urban life, striking depictions of Christianity from an Ethiopian perspective, unusually layered images of the political and military exploits of Ethiopian rulers…these are the innovative creations of Qes Adamu Tesfaw.
Adamu’s work ranges from the devotional to the popular and thus cannot be neatly categorized. Schooled in the philosophy and aesthetics of a fifteen-hundred-year-old tradition associated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, he left the priesthood to turn to painting full-time, finding the freedom to venture beyond religious subject matter and to develop a style all his own. Come see this beautiful traveling exhibition, which presents thirty-five of the artist's finest paintings produced over the past forty years.
Cost: Free and open to the public; parking is available in lot 4 for $7.
Special Instructions
Enter UCLA at Westwood and Sunset Blvd.
For more information please contact
James S. Coleman African Studies Center
Tel: 310-825-3686
africa@international.ucla.edu
www.international.ucla.edu
Sponsor(s): African Studies Center, Globalization Research Center - Africa
