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Newsletter Winter 2007

Inaugural eNewsletter - Like the rest of the world, the JSCASC is moving more and more of its activities online to reach wider audiences more quickly and efficiently and to take advantage of ever-evolving electronic media.

Published: Monday, April 23, 2007

January 2007

:: IN THIS ISSUE :: 

Features

::-:: From the Director 

::-:: Forty Years of 'African Arts'

::-:: Mazisi Kunene, South African Poet Laureate, Anti-apartheid Leader, and UCLA Professor

::-:: UCLA Visiting Professor Wins Prestigious French Book Prize

::-:: 'As a Teacher, I Have Power'

::-:: From Dorms to Dakar

::-:: K-12 Teachers Seek Out Lesson in African-Latin American Links

::-:: African Stories in Online Curriculum

::-:: Give Meaning to 'Globalization'

@ the FOWLER

::-:: 'Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World'

 

Recent Events

:::::: The Dead

:::::: Want to Promote Development? Fight AIDS

:::::: Former Ambassador Emphasizes Africa's Centrality

:::::: Leading Ethiopian Historian Revisits Student Movement

:::::: Diary Gives a Face to HIV/AIDS Battle

:::::: Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization

:::::: Bright Lights, Hard Lives

:::::: Ngugi wa Thiong'o Shares His Art

 

::-:: From the Director

ASC Director Allen F. Roberts introduces ASC's new eNEWSLETTER and gives a roundup of 2006.

 

Like the rest of the world, the JSCASC is moving more and more of its activities online to reach wider audiences more quickly and efficiently and to take advantage of ever-evolving electronic media. We hope that you will enjoy this new means of reaching out to you, and that in turn, you will reach back to the Center with your ideas, suggestions, and information about your own Africa-oriented activities that we can share with our readers. 

Read article

http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=62526

 

::-:: Forty Years of 'African Arts'

Herbert M. Cole looks at four decades of "African Arts" at UCLA and what the future may have in store for the journal and the field of African art.

Celebrate African Arts, now entering into its fortieth year! Launched ambitiously in 1967, pledging a bilingual survey of all the traditional and contemporary arts—sculpture, painting, architecture, poetry and other literature, theater, and dance—it made good on the French/English promise for only three years, yet continued its broad arts coverage into the 1970s.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=60759

::-:: Mazisi Kunene, South African Poet Laureate, Anti-apartheid Leader, and UCLA Professor

The UCLA African Studies Center held a memorial service for Kunene on Oct. 12.

Mazisi Raymond Fakazi Mngoni Kunene, celebrated poet, prominent anti-apartheid activist, and emeritus professor of African linguistics and literature at UCLA, died on Aug. 11 at Entabeni Hospital in Durban, South Africa, after a long illness. He was 76.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=55621

 

::-:: UCLA Visiting Professor Wins Prestigious French Book Prize

Prix Renaudot winners become "mega-stars overnight" in France.

A French/Congolese writer who is teaching this year at UCLA has been selected for the French equivalent of the National Book Award.

Alain Mabanckou, who has been called "the most prolific contemporary writer in the French language," has been selected to receive the Renaudot Prize for his latest novel — "Mémoire de Porc-épic" (Memoirs of a Porcupine).

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=57065

 

::-:: 'As a Teacher, I Have Power'

W. Michael 'Jelani' Hamm, the Coordinator for the Social Justice Magnet at Crescent Heights Elementary, discusses his experiences at a two-day K-12 teachers' workshop on the plight of African children.

Once again, something in me has been stirred at the end of the teachers' workshop on children in Africa. Perhaps it was the Africa in me, or maybe it was the spirits of the children I've met on my trips to Africa over the years. During the two-day workshop on Feb. 25 and March 18, 2006, the discussions were compelling and had me hanging onto every word; and when it was all said and done, I felt rich. I walked away from with a wealth of emotions and information and a true image of Africa.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=48547

::-:: From Dorms to Dakar

WAC students experience language, culture of Senegal through UCLA Summer Session program.

The Familiar pounding of six Sabar drums drew nearly every villager to a pulsing circle of dancers. Small children rushed to the center of the circle, eagerly starting the first dance performance of the evening.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=53151

::-:: K-12 Teachers Seek Out Lesson in African-Latin American Links

A ten-day workshop for local educators provides much-needed evidence that heritages of Latina/o and African American students intersect.

This summer, 17 Los Angeles–area schoolteachers in a ten-day training workshop at UCLA learned about Haitian Vodou customs, African influences in Mexican music, and challenges faced by their colleagues at various levels of K-12 instruction. The July 22–Aug. 3 workshop on "Africa-Latin American Intersections: Cultural Synergies through the Centuries" was co-sponsored by UCLA's African Studies Center and Latin American Center, in part through a U.S. Department of Education grant. 

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/lac/article.asp?parentid=54785

::-:: African Stories in Online Curriculum Give Meaning to 'Globalization'

16 short tales, and warring commentaries on them, form the core of GlobaLink-Africa, a free, year-long, multimedia curriculum designed for grades 9-12. The polished, feature-rich web site is not only for high schoolers. Others can raid it for music, country data, or a crash course on Africa and the contemporary world.

In Kenya, Irene Chege makes a good living exporting cut flowers—a winter trade in Europe and one that has been easier to compete in under EC common market rules. To maximize state revenues in another global commodity market, the Ghanaian Cocoa Board sets farmers' prices so low that many competitors of 70-year-old Kofi Amoakohene smuggle their harvests across the border to the Ivory Coast; with agriculture in decline, young Ghanaians leave the region behind, and extended families adopt new living arrangements. Maria de Sousa Sitoe, Mozambique's travel minister, turns underdevelopment in her nation to advantage by attracting so-called eco-tourists to lands described as "untouched," even as she pushes for infrastructure projects to support the tourism.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=50590

@ the FOWLER

::+:: UCLA Fowler Museum to Premiere 'Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World' Oct. 29

The first major U.S. exhibition on Tuareg art and culture examines the history of "the Blue People of the Sahara," so-called for their indigo turbans that at times stain their skin and define their identity as they ride on majestic camels.

The Tuareg, a semi-nomadic people of Niger, Mali and Algeria, have fascinated travelers and scholars throughout history. The "art" of being Tuareg — their elegant dress and exquisite ornamentation, their refined song, speech and dance — has been the subject of rhapsodic descriptions that suggest a Tuareg "mystique." Who the Tuareg are today and how the Tuareg and their mystique have been invented through time by themselves and by others are considered in the first major U.S. exhibition on Tuareg art and culture, "Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World," on display from Oct. 29, 2006, through Feb. 25, 2007, at UCLA's Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Read article
http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=51748

Recent Events

:::::: The Dead

In a series of up-close testimonies survivors of the Rwandan genocide tell their stories in Eric Kabera's film 'Keepers of Memory’.

In Rwanda, 800,000 people—up to 1 million by some estimates—were killed in 100 days in 1994. The survivors' stories are chronicled in Eric Kabera's film, "Keepers of Memory." Kabera answered questions about his film after a Jan. 27 screening by the African Studies Center in UCLA's Moore Hall. More informtion (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=38322)

:::::: Want to Promote Development? Fight AIDS

Director of World Bank Global HIV/AIDS Program discusses magnitude of a long-term epidemic, strategies for saving lives.

To save their populations from the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic, says Debrework Zewdie, who directs the World Bank's efforts to prevent and treat the disease, nations must have the will to protect vulnerable and stigmatized groups, to work around restrictions placed on donated funds, to improve healthcare systems across the board, and to understand patterns of disease transmission that vary among countries and locales. Zewdie, an Ethiopian-born, British-educated immunologist with long experience in Africa and public health, spoke Feb. 22 to a packed Royce Hall auditorium. More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=40233)

:::::: Former Ambassador Emphasizes Africa's Centrality

Princeton Lyman, a Ralph Bunche senior fellow, visited UCLA to present a report by the Council of Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy towards Africa.

Former ambassador Princeton Lyman had one main message for the 30 or so students and faculty gathered in Bunche Hall on Tuesday evening: Africa is becoming more and more central to the U.S., and not just in terms of humanitarian and charity concerns. More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=39175)

:::::: Leading Ethiopian Historian Revisits Student Movement

Bahru Zewde of Addis Ababa University was a member and early observer of the movement that supplied ideas for transition after the 1974 revolution.

Although Ethiopia's student leaders spent much of the 1960s and early 1970s dreaming about a revolution that would free them from the decades-old rule of Emperor Haile Selassie I, "everybody" was caught by surprise when revolution actually came in 1974, explained the prominent Ethiopian historian Bahru Zewde on April 3, 2006. On a rainy afternoon in Los Angeles, Zewde spoke to about 40 members of the public and the UCLA community at a talk co-sponsored by the James S. Coleman African Studies Center and the Department of History. More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=42059)

:::::: Diary Gives a Face to HIV/AIDS Battle

Woman records experience on radio to bring patients hope, erase stigma attached to illness.

Thembi Ngubane is just one face in a sea of millions in South Africa affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But it is her voice that is bringing the realities of the virus' impact to the United States.

The 21-year-old Ngubane has been recording her day-to-day life and battle with AIDS for National Public Radio's popular show "All Things Considered" since she was 19. The series, "Thembi's AIDS Diary: A Year in the Life of a South African Teenager," first aired April 19 and attracts 11.5 million listeners a week. More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=44607)

:::::: Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization

With the 2006 FIFA World Cup days away from kicking off, the African Activist Association staged their first conference of its kind, "Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization" on the 31st of May 2006.

With the 2006 FIFA World Cup days away from kicking off, the African Activist Association staged their first conference of its kind, "Soccer, Nationalism, and Globalization" on the 31st of May 2006. The event featured five distinguished speakers Samuel Mchombo (UC Berkeley), Michael Schatzberg (U Wisconsin-Madison), Gerard Akindes (Ohio University), and Jude Akudinobi (UC Santa Barbara) as well as a retired player from the Ghana Women's National Team and prospective graduate student in UCLA's African Studies UCLA, Mimi Osei-Agyemang. These speakers made presentations ranging from incisive academic analyses of the sociological, ideological, and economic under-currents of soccer to personal anecdotes and memoirs. The night culminated with the screening of Le Ballon d'Or (The Golden Ball), the film's official west coast premier at Haines Hall in the evening. The event was generously sponsored by a variety of organizations, institutes, centers and student groups on campus. More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=48106)

:::::: Bright Lights, Hard Lives

The people of Nigeria's southern delta region benefit little from oil wealth. UCLA panel discussions focus on the causes of their distress.

Although most Nigerians in the southern region known as the Niger Delta do not have electricity, their sky is lit up at night. The lights come from the burning off or "flaring" of natural gases, a byproduct of the two million barrels of oil pulled from the ground every day.

It's like having a jet engine next to your home, explained Jimmie Williams, an attorney in the Africa unit of the Burnham Brown law firm, at a Sept. 21, 2006, panel discussion sponsored by the UCLA African Studies Center, the UCLA Globalization Research Center–Africa (GRCA), the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and the Africa-USA International Chamber of Commerce and Industry. More informtion (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=55095)

:::::: Ngugi wa Thiong'o Shares His Art

On a book tour for his English translation of 'Wizard of the Crow,' the Kenyan novelist and playwright teaches a UCLA audience about dictators, globalization, and 'the unity behind creation.'

"Monolinguism is a recipe for the strangulation of the cultural life of a people," Ngugi wa Thiong'o told about 50 listeners at a reading and book signing on campus Nov. 1, 2006. The book tour marks the English publication of Ngugi's Wizard of the Crow, his first novel in two decades and his own translation from the Gikuyu (Murogi wa Kagogo, 2004–). He read passages from the novel, including one that wrings comedy out of both the pretensions of state power and Kenyans' varying competencies in their mother tongues, the lingua franca of Swahili, and the colonists' English, "the language of education and administration." More information (http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/article.asp?parentid=56915)

eNEWSLETTER is distributed by the UCLA African Studies Center.

James S. Coleman African Studies Center
UCLA
10244 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1310

Tele: 310-825-3686
Fax: 310-206-2250

e-mail: africa@international.ucla.edu
website: http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa

For more info please contact:
African Studies Center
310-825-3686
africa@international.ucla.edu

African Studies Center