The latest issue includes poetry, analysis and reviews.
By Kim Foulds and Amy Pojar
AFTER NEARLY 40 years of print publication, Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies is now available exclusively online and free of charge. In keeping with the spirit of the founding goals of the journal as a space for marginalized writers on Africa and the African diaspora, Ufahamu is now also more accessible to marginalized readers. Utilizing the tools of the virtual age, we hope to usher in a new era of increased dialogue and enriched scholarship for Africanists around the world. With the publication of our second online issue (Volume 35, Issue 2), we look forward to continuing the mission of accessibility and serving as a space for voices traditionally marginalized in the academy. We are excited to see Ufahamu’s online manifestation attracting fine submissions and a growing readership.
The latest issue includes poetry highlighting the work of the African Activist Association’s 2009 conference, Narratives of Now: Visual and Performance Art in Africa. Nebila Abdulmelik’s “Mother Africa,” initially performed as spoken word, offers a tribute to the strength and beauty of the continent despite her marginalized history. Cassandra Tesch’s “African Mosaic,” a unique collaborative piece, brings together the voices of many of AAA’s members and explores different notions of what “Africa is.” Felton Perry’s “Kidnapping: An Underreported Aspect of African Agency During the Slave Trade Era (1440-1886)” provides insight into the untold stories of the involvement of Africans in the history of African enslavement. Abel Mac Diakparomre’s “Artifacts as Social Conflict Resolution Mechanism in Traditional Urhobo Society of Nigeria's Niger Delta” identifies and evaluates the social conflicts prevalent in traditional Urhobo society and the resolution mechanisms employed. Nelson Fashina’s piece, “Alienation and Revolutionary Vision in East African Post-Colonial Dramatic Literature,” explores social alienation and exile in African societies as seen through the perspectives of African postcolonial writers. Finally, Katharine Stuffelbeam and Allison DePasquale give excellent reviews of Kassim Mohammed Khamis’s Promoting the African Union and David Keen’s The Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan 1983-1989, respectively.
We hope you enjoy this and future editions of Ufahamu as a window into the local and global issues that face Africa historically and currently. As always, we showcase the social, political, economic, and artistic undertakings of the continent from marginalized and multiple voices in order to inspire critical and progressive movement forward.
Foulds and Pojar are the editors in chief of Ufahamu, which is published by the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at UCLA.