Boston University - African Studies Center

                                                                    

Boston University African Studies Center

17th Annual Graduate Research Conference

"Creating Consciousness: Emerging in African Studies" 

March 13th & 14th, 2009 

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM  

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FRIDAY, March 13                                                                                    

2:00pm-4:00pm                SESSION ONE

Panel I:  At the Movies and on the Radio 

Katsuki Sakai, Boston University, Beth Restrick, Boston University, Casey Golomski, Brandeis University - "Documenting Southern African Songs Using Multimedia Technologies"

Z'etoile Imma, University of Virginia - "Under Western Eyes: The Gaze and African Woman Body in Ousmane Sembene's Moolaade"

Gareth McFeely, Boston University - "Film Censorship in Postwar Colonial Kenya, 1945-1959"

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Panel II: Managing African Landscapes

Kimberley Roosenburg, Yale University - "Partners in Protection? Sport Hunting as a Means to Community-based Conservation"

Jocelyn Muller, Tufts University, Hama Hassane - "History and Politics of Conservation Policy: A Case Study of Fire Management in the Niger Park W Complex"

Nomcebisi Ndlovu, Yale University  - "Customary law and Traditionalism in KwaZulu-Natal"

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FRIDAY, March 13               

5:30pm-6:30pm  Keynote Address Dr. Jeanne Penvenne 

7:00pm-10:00pm Dinner & Reception for conference participants 

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SATURDAY, March 14

 8:00am-8:30am              Breakfast (Provided to conference participants)

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8:30am-10:30am            SESSION TWO

Panel I: Contemporary Development Issues

Sade Owolabi, Cornell University - "Community Participation in Local Governance: Conceptualization & Outcomes of the Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP) in Kenya"

Kenneth Koech Cheruiyot, University of Cincinnati - "New ICTs and African Development: Can the Continent Benefit in the New Economy this Time Round?"

Farzana Ramzan, University of Manchester - "Innovations, Intra-household Risk and Rural Poverty in Tanzania"

Zachary Patterson, University of Indiana-Purdue at Indianapolis - "The Reality of Development: A Critique of the Current International Development Policies Failing to Aid Africa's Poor"

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Panel II: Africa in Global Perspective

Pedro Monaville, University of Michigan - "Global 1968 in Kinshasa: From a Student Massacre to Ruins in a Postcolonial University"

Moeed Yusuf, Boston University - "Pakistan in Africa: In India's Shadow"

Martin Rowe, Boston University - "Reorienting 'Otherness': Adaptive Identity Strategies among Sudanese Refugees in Cairo"

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Saturday, March 14

 10:45am-12:45pm                   SESSION THREE

Panel I: Reimagining the Precolonial Past

Kirsten Atwood, University of Texas at Austin - "Iron Age Settlement Patterns in Southern Africa: A New Approach"

Steve Pierce, University of Wisconsin - "Early Swahili History from an Oceanic Perspective"

Courtnay Micots, University of Florida - "Statements of Bravado: The Development of Fante Shrines into Architectural and Sculptural Works of Art"

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Panel II: Painting Africa: The Relationship of Image and Media

Carla Klehm, University of Texas - Austin - "The Imaging/Imagining of Africa: Comparative Representations in African and American Museums"

Brendan Wattenberg, New York University - "All the World's a Stage: Kehinde Wiley and the Nouveau Negritude"

Nancy Demerdash, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - "Finding Agency in Manufactured Heritage: The Politics of Tourism in Marrakesh"

Brian Ekdale, University of Wisconsin-Madison - "The Challenges of Producing Advocacy Media in Nairobi's Slums"

Melissa Tully, University of Wisconsin-Madison - "Media, Memory and Moving Forward: Remembering the 2007-2008 Kenyan Post-Election Crisis"

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12:45pm-1:45pm           Lunch (Provided to conference participants)

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1:45pm-3:45pm             SESSION FOUR

Panel I: Resistance and Revolt

Daniel Haumschild, University of Buffalo - "The Utility and Limitations of Terror in Revolutionary Movements: A Reflection on Mau Mau"

Sarah Westwood, Boston University - "Organized Violence: Indigenous Organization in Sierra Leone's 1898 Hut Tax War"

Nelson Takon, University of London - "Oil and Conflict in Nigeria: Ijaw Politics and Violence in Bayelsa State since 1996"

Peter McGuire, Boston University - "Armed Conflict in the Niger Delta: Oil, Youth, Politics, and Criminality"

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Panel II: Making and Unmaking the State/Nation

Timothy Nicholson, Stony Brook University  - "Making Tanzanians:  State Sponsored Education and the Creation of a Tanzanian Citizen, A Dissertation Proposal"

Katrina Leach, Boston University - "The Development of Nationalism in Tanzania"
 
Takaaki Masaki, Georgetown University - "Military Elite Politics And Its Long-Term Implications For Democratic Transition And Consolidation"

Johanna Womer Benjamin, Georgetown University - "Piracy: Both a symptom and a cause of state failure in Somalia"

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4:00pm-6:00pm             SESSION FIVE

Panel I: The Spiritual and Temporal

Shandirai Mawokomatanda, Boston University - "Church-Society Dialectic: The evolving roles and developing vision of the United Methodist Church, Zimbabwe: 1965-2000"

Casey Golomski, Brandeis University - "Temperamental Voices: Changing Families and their Ancestors in Swaziland"

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Panel II: Gender Roles in Transition

Edwin Otu, Ohio University  - "Analyzing Gender Issues in Irrigation in Ghana: A document analysis of International Water Management Institute (IWMI) Publications"

Lynda Pickbourn, University of Massachusetts, Amherst - "Breaking the Myth of Consensus in Household Migration Decisions: A Study of Female Migration in Ghana"

Laura Pascoe, University of California, Davis - "It Takes Two to Tango: Enabling Women's Agency and Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health Through Challenging Problematic Notions of Masculinity"

Chinekwu Obidoa, University of Connecticut - "Trafficking in Young Women in Africa: Unveiling the Root Causes"

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The Graduate Research Conference in African Studies is an interdisciplinary forum intended for graduate students at all levels of study.  The conference provides an informal setting in which students can exchange ideas, share research, and expand collegial networks.  In past years, participants have presented course research, dissertation proposals, thesis chapters, methodological models, and other works in progress.  While there are no strict thematic guidelines, special consideration will be given to papers with multidisciplinary application and/or cross-regional appeal.

ASC Conference contact:     ascgrcon@bu.edu 

Boston University African Studies Center

270 Bay State Road

Boston, MA 02215