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Program of African Studies

Winter 2011/Volume 21, Number 2

N o r t h w e s t e r N U N i v e r s i t y

n e w s a n d e V e n t s

David L. Easterbrook

When I first spotted a T-shirt bearing the image of Barack Obama, it was in Africa.

I was on a two-week trip to attend the 2007 meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions in Durban, South Africa. The shirt’s wearer was walking outside the Old Library Museum in Graaff Reinet, not far from where black nationalist leader Robert Sobukwe had grown up. A few days later I saw Obama T-shirts on several University of KwaZulu-Natal students. And Obama invariably came up in my chats with Durban taxi drivers, many of whom recalled Senator Obama’s visit to South Africa in 2006.

Before returning to Northwestern I had decided that the University’s Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies should have materials — as comprehensive a collection as possible — documenting Africa’s response to Obama.

Northwestern faculty, students, staff, and

alumni would play a critical role in building the collection that now exists. My first e-mail request for help went to about 20 recipients. Many for-warded the message to their own colleagues.

Materials began to arrive.

“ africa embracing obama”: a herskovits library exhibit

Continuing its Global Health Lecture Series, PAS will host a talk by author Tracy Kidder, whose book Strength in What Remains retraces the genocide that swept through Burundi and Rwanda in 1994. Kidder will talk about and read from the work at noon February 9 in the McCormick Tribune Center Forum. A reception will follow in the lobby.

Strength in What Remains follows the true story of Deo, a medical student who fled the war in Burundi, only to end up homeless and jobless in New York City. Through the kind-ness of numerous people, Deo was able to enroll in Columbia University, finish his medical degree in the United States, and return to Burundi to open a clinic. Strength in What Remains was a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award in 2009.

Another Kidder book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, is the 2010–11 One Book One Northwestern selection. It features a doctor who found his calling in fighting infectious diseases among the world’s poorest people. Kidder will talk about this book at 4:30 p.m. February 10 in room 107 in Harris Hall.

author tracy Kidder to speak in february

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If the fall quarter is a predictor of things to come, it’s going to be an excit-ing year! In fall 2010, PAS sponsored or cosponsored a wide array of events that appealed to the diverse interests of its community.

The yearlong Global Health Lec-ture Series opened in the fall, featuring Robert Bailey (University of Illinois at Chicago), Carolyn Baer (Center for Global Health, Northwestern), and Megan Miller (Indiana-Kenya Partnership/USAID-AMPATH). The series is cosponsored by Northwest-ern’s Program in Public Health, Office of International Program Development, and the One Book One Northwestern project and is organized by Beth Barden (lecturer, global health stud-ies) and Patricia Ogedengbe (librarian, Herskovits Library).

Other exciting fall events included lectures by PAS affiliates, including Northwestern faculty member Rachel

pastories

robert Bailey

Johnnetta Cole, left, and abdulrazak Gurnah, below

fall quarter events set exciting tone Beatty Riedl (political sci-ence), visiting scholars Samuel Oloruntoba (political science, University of Nigeria, Lagos) and Marta Garcia-Novo (Centro de Ciencias, Huma-nas Y Socialies, Madrid), and alumni Michael Tuck (history, Northeastern Illinois Uni-versity) and Johnnetta Cole (director, Smithsonian Insti-tution Museum of African Art). Cole, a former student of Melville Herskovits, reflected on her career in a talk she called “Africa on My Mind.”

Writers were also prominent in the fall. PAS sponsored a weeklong visit by Zanzibari writer Abdulrazak Gurnah and a panel discussion on migration and mobility with writers Bayo Otijuku, Benjamin Kwakye, and Doreen Baingana. Also, James Kilgore, who went to Africa in the 1970s, talked about his work of his-torical fiction focusing on the Mugabe era, We Are All Zimbabweans Now!

The PAS Hip Hop Studies Work-ing Group (see story on page 8) spon-sored a talk by Mwenda Ntarangwi on his new book East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization. Elisha Renne (anthropology, University of Michigan) spoke on her new research project on veiling and turbaning in northern Nigeria.

PAS will continue to present diverse programming throughout the rest of the academic year. Please see the website for the winter calendar of events. Already scheduled for the Global Health Lecture Series are lec-tures by anthropology PhD candidate Jean Hunleth, “Between Silence and Disclosure: Children, Illness Knowl-edge, and Care in Lusaka, Zambia,” on January 26, and by author Tracy Kidder on February 9 (see story about Kidder on page 1).

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obama, continued from front page

As of early 2011, more than 50 people — 37 with close ties to Northwestern — have contributed to the collection, which now has more than 550 Obama-related items from 31 African countries. In addition to T-shirts and other clothing, it includes both scholarly and popular books and journals, posters, music and performance CDs and DVDs, commemo-rative cloth, jewelry, portraits, and a wide range of craft and artworks. Many acquisitions were the result of trading items originating in Chicago for their African counterparts.

And the collection continues to grow. Among the newest additions: Obama bubblegum, lollipops, and biscuits.

“Africa Embracing Obama,” an exhibit of about 150 items from the collection, is on view on the first floor of Uni-versity Library and in the Herskovits Library through March 25. It includes two publications by Barack Obama Sr., part of the Herskovits Library’s collections since their publication in 1959 and 1965, and documents that highlight the historical connections between Obama’s ties to Africa and Northwest-ern’ Program of African Studies.

David L. Easterbrook is the George and Mary LeCron Foster Curator at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.

undergraduate africa seminar hosts dinner discussions During its second year the Undergraduate Africa Seminar — a forum for Northwestern undergraduates from diverse disciplines to explore their interests in Africa — invited professors to meet with students over dinner to discuss current and continuing questions facing the continent. By fall quar-ter’s end, students were engaging other students, as a panel of undergraduates presented their Africa-related research to the seminar, fielding questions and stimulating discussion.

Evan Mwangi (English) and Will Reno (political science) led the year’s first seminar. From Mwangi’s teaching experi-ence in Kenya to Reno’s wartime experiences in Sierra Leone, they shared stories of how they came to study the continent. The event introduced freshmen and others from a variety of disciplines to the opportunities within African studies at Northwestern.

Christian Ukaegbu (sociology) spoke at the second seminar, which discussed the social and economic challenges impeding development on the continent. A key theme was that while it is important to recognize that African cities have experienced enormous growth and a growing middle class, there are governance problems, armed conflict, and en-trenched patronage networks that continue to impede growth in many states.

The group partnered with the African Students Associa-tion’s Film and Lecture Series for the third seminar of the quarter. A screening of the Rwandan docudrama 100 Days was followed by a Q&A panel led by Richard Lepine (African and Asian languages) and senior Belise Rutagengwa. The film contrasts with the popular Hollywood rendition of the 1994 genocide, Hotel Rwanda, prompting a dialogue about the dif-ferences between the films, their adherence to historic events, and the implications of both portrayals.

The group invites undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members to join its dialogue about Africa. To be added to the listserv, contact african-studies@northwestern.edu.

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Editor’s note: The late John Messenger was one of Melville Herskovits’s early students. His widow, Betty, drew on the detailed diary she kept about their research among the Anang in Nigeria in the 1950s to write this article.

John arrived at Northwestern in 1949 for graduate study at a time when the newly established African studies program and anthropology were essentially the same. He became an Africanist under the tutelage of Melville Herskovits, Wil-liam Bascom, Francis Hsu, and Richard Waterman. I taught in an Evanston school and was able to accompany John to evening seminars at which African scholars, writers, and politicians spoke.

As part of a funded field methods seminar, John and I had the opportunity to hone interview skills by working 60 hours with an Anang Nigerian, Udo Ekam. The first of his people to study for a university degree in the United States, he was supported by thousands of Anang. From that encounter, we chose our research site and project: the effect of Christianity on Anang culture.

John’s proposal for research funding was accepted by the Carnegie Founda-tion. Armed with letters of introduction

and educated in the etiquette of deal-ing with colonial officials, we set forth in the spring of 1951 for southeastern Nigeria, with a stop at Cambridge, England, first to meet with Africanist scholars and members of the American Consulate and the British Secretariat.

Arriving in Lagos on a BOAC flight, we selected an Anang who was anxious to return home to serve as steward in our household. With a refrigerator and our supplies, we sailed for two days on a rusty government coal boat along the Guinea Coast to Port Harcourt in the East, encounter-ing a violent lightning storm on the way. After several days of orientation with American and British officials in Port Harcourt, we were driven in a Public Works Department lorry 60 miles inland to the Ikot Ekpene district.

Home was a bush rest house among the Afaha Anang subgroup. Bill Bascom and his wife, Berta, met us there and drove us to Oyo, their research site, to show us how to get along in the field and to manage a household. (We were later able to offer the same kind of help to Simon and Ottenberg, a fellow graduate student

and his wife Phoebe, on their way to the Ibo in Afikpo.)

We slept under mosquito nets on camp cots in an enclosed bedroom but ate and worked in the open. Having a steward, small boy, water boy, wood boy, cook, and night watchman left us free to do research. An old Ford Prefect, which we purchased from American Lutheran missionaries and named “Arthritis” because of its many creaks, enabled us to travel over trails connecting villages.

Our prior contact with Udo Ekam in Evanston helped to eliminate many of the problems usually associated with gaining rapport in the field. Members of his family visited us with gifts shortly after we arrived and paved our way to other lineage members. From members of his lineage, we chose our interpreter, an important man in his own right, who facilitated our access to other Anang in over 50 villages.

At the end of each day, John usually typed field notes, which he periodically sent to Herskovits and which are filed in the Northwestern Archives. Herskovits was so excited about the notes on a drama society performance that he asked John to change the direc-tion of his research and study the society intensively. John said no. (One of his three Nigerian students years later fol-lowed through on the project as a true participant-observer.)

Many people have wondered why John, having completed his disserta-tion on shifting cultural focus after our return from Nigeria, left African studies and turned his interests to Ireland. The answer is that he never completely left. Jobs were scarce in 1953 and, not

John Messenger (at desk) among the anang in nigeria in the 1950s (photo courtesy of Betty Messenger)

research among the anang 60 years ago

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encouraged but assisted by Herskovits, he accepted a position at Michigan State where he was for the most part cut off from people with interests in Africa, at least until 1960 when an African Studies Program was established there. He became adviser to the Association of African Students at Michigan State, lectured the first Peace Corps group to go to Nigeria, and published materials on the Anang.

Research begun shortly after his arrival at Indiana University also helped maintain his interest in Africa. Having both Irish and African expertise, he was an ideal person to do work on the Carib-bean island of Monteserrat, to which the first Irish settlers came in 1632 and the first slaves were brought in 1664. He began to study the impact of African and Irish cultures on West Indians to-day, finding African cultural retentions and reinterpretations with Irish forms to be most pronounced in the areas of song, music, verbal art, dance, and the supernatural.

When an Anang doctor joined a medical group here in Columbus, John lent him his dissertation on the Anang. Born 20 years after we did our research and coming from an area where evan-gelical churches in particular have done their best to stamp out traditional prac-tices, the man was overwhelmed seeing artifacts he had only heard about.

Two years ago, John, working through Lawrence University, made arrangements for a permanent schol-arship bearing both our names to be awarded to students from West Africa. I hope an Anang will be its recipient some year soon.

in memoriam

pas mourns death of fay leary lewis (1943–2010)Northwestern alumna and former faculty member frances anne “fay” leary lewis, 67, of Washington, DC, died at her home September 25 of complications from a brain tumor. An African studies pioneer, Lewis conducted field studies in Senegal, Morocco, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, and many other African nations.

Until becoming ill last spring, Lewis had been a program officer at Merid-ian International Center in Washington, where for 22 years she worked on the State Department’s Internation-al Visitor Leadership Program, arranging for promising young Africans and visitors around the world to receive educational programs about the United States on topics such as rights, conflict resolution, and governance.

“Fay had a unique ability not only to mentor young people interested in pursuing careers in international relations but also, through her wide range of personal

contacts across the country, to arrange programs for foreign visitors that added an important dimension to their American experience,” recalled Meridian vice president Susan Cabiati. “Fay and Art Lewis also did wonders for international understanding on a very personal basis by opening their home to visitors from Africa, providing friendship, hospitality, advice, and comfort when necessary.”

Lewis graduated from Smith College with a BA in history and earned an MA and PhD in African history at Northwestern. Her 1969 PhD dissertation was the pioneering study “Islam, Politics, and Colonialism: A Political History of Islam in the Casamance Region of Senegal.” She subsequently taught African and Mideast history at Temple University and at Northwestern. She was also a lecturer at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the Depart-ment of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

Lewis was a chair of the US Association of African Studies Programs, cochair of the Task Force on African Languages and International Studies of the National Council on Foreign Languages and International Studies, and the US Information Agency’s branch chief for the Fulbright program with Africa.

Shortly after her 1983 marriage to Arthur W. Lewis, also of Washington, he was appointed by President Reagan as the US ambassador to Sierra Leone. During the Lewis’s three years at the embassy in Freetown, she served as a consultant to UNICEF and to the UN Development Program and as a lecturer at Fourah Bay College. She also served as an international training specialist for USAID in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Ivory Coast.

Lewis’s publications include articles on African studies outreach and on Manding history, translations from French to English of a book on African languages, and articles on African traditional religions. — Adapted from the Washington Post, October 3, 2010

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isita news

dakar workshop considers contexts of sufi literature from senegambia The Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) organized a two-day workshop in December at the West African Research Center in Dakar to explore the contexts that shaped works included in an upcoming anthology of Sufi literature.

Scholars associated with ISITA are translating and compiling the selected writings of some of Senegal’s most renowned Sufi authors into a single English-language anthology as part of an ongoing Ford Foundation–funded project to explore the constitution of bodies of Islamic knowledge in Africa.

The workshop was designed to explore the historical, biographical, and intellectual contexts that shaped these works in order to present them in the anthology. Presentations included original research conducted by classi-cally trained Muslim intellectuals as well as university-trained academics. The workshop was conducted in Wolof, though written contributions were in French, Wolof, and Arabic.

Authors to appear in the anthology include Al-Hajj Umar Tall, Al-Hajj Malik Sy, Ahmadu Bamba Mbacké, Ibrahim Niasse, Roqayya Niasse, and Maimouna Mbacké. Centering thematically on Tasawwuf (Sufism) as a distinct discipline within the Islamic

a tijani sebha (rosary)

religious sciences, the translated texts also will include much on Islamic law, theology, education, and the broader ethic of Islamic mysticism.

workshop to explore islamic intellectual networks An ISITA workshop on March 4 will explore Islamic intellectual networks and exchange in East Africa and the Indian Ocean. A particular focus will be on historicizing Islamic reform movements within a broader Indian Ocean context. Confirmed present-ers include Abdallah Chanfi Ahmed (Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin), Valerie Hoffman (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Scott Reese (Northern Arizona University), Rahma Bavelaar (Northwestern), Nathaniel Mathews (Northwestern), and Hassan Ndzovu (ISITA postdoctoral fellow).

“traces of light” exhibition will show-case tijaniyya sufi orderAn exhibition on the Tijaniyya Sufi order, the most prominent Sufi order in Africa since the 19th century, will open April 4 with a reception and talk at PAS by Algerian researcher and journalist Said Bouterfa titled “The Tariqa Tijaniyya: Critical Studies of Colonial Writings.” Bouterfa will visit ISITA in March and April to install the exhibition.

Titled “Traces of Light,” the exhibition will be in two places: at PAS, where photographs of people and sacred sites will be displayed, and in the display cases outside the Herskovits Library, where relevant manuscripts will be shown. Some of the manuscripts will be from the West African Arabic manuscript collection in the Herskovits Library.

The exhibition is planned in con-junction with preparation of a reference work on the literary production of the Tijaniyya by Ruediger Seesemann (religion) and a team of scholars.

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abdallah Chanfi ahmed of the Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, will visit ISITA March 1–7. Trained in Islamic studies and social history, Ahmed has written on a variety of topics related to Islam in sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa in particular, including Sufi revival, Muslim preach-ers, and Islamic education and NGOs. His books and articles include Les Conversions à l ’Islam fondamentaliste en Afrique au sud du Sahara; Le cas de la Tanzanie et du Kenya (2008); and the introduction to a special Africa Today issue on performing Islamic Revival in Africa (Africa Today 54, 4: 2008). His current research investigates the role of West African ulama in Mecca and Medina in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Muhammed al-Munir Gibrill joins the ISITA community from January through May to collaborate with Muhammad Sani Umar (religious studies and ISITA director) on a Ford Foundation–funded project to prepare an anthology in English translation of fatwas and other Muslim writings on European colonial rule in West Africa. Gibrill is a PhD student in the Near Eastern languages and culture department at Indiana University Bloomington.

above, tijanis gather to perform dhikr (remembrance of allah) in ain-Madhi, algeria, the birthplace of the order’s founder.left, the tijani zawiya (sufi gathering place) at Guemar, algeria

isita-affiliated visitors join pas community

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Community news

announcing pas’s 2010–11 executive faculty committeeEach year an executive faculty committee is appointed to oversee the overall intellectual direction of PAS, whose administrative home is the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies. The committee is responsible for working with PAS-affiliated faculty and students and communicating with University adminis-trators. Meeting once a month throughout the quarter, members collectively review PAS awards, programs, and visiting scholars’ applications. Committee members, roles, and specific areas of responsibility are as follows:Karen tranberg hansen (anthropology): PAS speakers series Brian hanson (political science): Buffett Center programs,  research, operations d. soyini Madison (African American studies): AfriSem; graduate student awards, funding, supportevan Mwangi (English): PAS Working Papers Seriesnasrin Qader (African and Asian languages): visiting scholars’ applicationswill reno (political science), director of undergraduate studies: undergraduate awards, funding, support; funding for graduate student clustersJeff rice (history): undergraduate advising, awards, fundinghendrik spruyt (political science), Buffett Center director M. sani umar (religious studies): AfriSem; graduate stu-dent awards, funding, support PAS assistant director Kate Dargis and program assistant Kristine Barker handle programming and administration.

For information, individual committee members may be contacted directly or by e-mailing k-dargis@northwestern.edu.

working group updateC.H.I. Cipher (Chicago Hip Hop Interdisciplinary Cipher) — aka the Hip Hop Studies Working Group — has been hard at work establishing itself through a series of events on campus, in Chicago, and throughout the US.

At its opening reception in September, the group hosted an interview and performance by Bajah and the Dry Eye Crew from Sierra Leone. The event took place during World Music Festival: Chicago.

In October, C.H.I. Cipher and PAS hosted Mwenda Ntarangwi, author of the new book East African Hip Hop. In November, at the Remixing the Art of Social Change Teach-In in Washington, DC, the panel “You Must Learn: From Academic Curriculum to Community Transformation” was jointly moderated by C.H.I. Cipher members Nate Mathews and Damon Burchell; panelists included Adam Mansbach, a leading theorist and scholar of hip hop culture and aesthetics; Mark Naison, profes-sor of African and African American studies at Fordham University; and Toronto-based journalist, broadcaster, and hip hop expert Dalton Higgins. The group is plan-ning a spring conference and teach-in featuring a guest artist from West Africa as well as many panels, films, and workshops.

C.H.I. Cipher welcomes involvement by all students interested in hip hop as a tool for social change on both the African continent and throughout the global Afri-can diaspora. For information contact Nate Mathews at mathews.nathaniel@gmail.com.

E-mail your news updates to african-studies@northwestern.edu so that PAS

can share the word with the Africanist community at Northwestern and beyond.

send us your working papersThe PAS Working Papers series showcases working papers in African studies by affiliated Northwestern faculty, gradu-ate students, advanced under-graduates, visiting scholars, and resident research fellows. The intention is to enable authors to solicit feedback from their peers. Working papers are posted on the PAS website and also available in printed form.

See www.northwestern.edu /african-studies/publica-tions_workingpapers.html for past working papers and style guidelines for authors. If you are interested in having a working paper considered, please e-mail it to african-studies@northwestern .edu.

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In November tom Geraghty, Bluhm Legal Clinic director, and sandra Babcock, director of the clinic’s Center for Human Rights, joined diane Geraghty of Loyola University Chicago School of Law and uzoamaka nzelibe, a clinical professor of law at Northwestern, in conducting six days of training on clinical teaching methodology for Ethiopian clini-cal law professors in Addis Ababa. Thirty professors from Ethiopia’s 17 government-funded law schools attended. The training was spon-sored by the curriculum implementation committee of Ethiopia’s Justice and Legal Systems Research Institute. It was an outgrowth of the 2009 assessment of Ethiopia’s legal education system that was con-ducted by Tom Geraghty and supported by USAID and the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative. Additional training is being planned for 2011.

Students in the law school’s human rights LLM program and law students from Loyola University Chicago in summer 2010 assessed the juvenile justice systems of Cameroon and Liberia for UNICEF in West Africa. This initiative was a joint project of the Bluhm Legal Clinic and the Loyola University Chicago Childlaw Program.

In August 2010 Juliet sorensen, clinical assistant professor of law taught a trial advocacy course in Cotonou, Benin, on behalf of the US Department of Justice Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training. The course, which focused on investigative and trial techniques in cases involving violence against women, was conducted pursuant to the Women’s Justice and Empowerment Initia-tive, a three-year, $55 million presidential initiative implemented in Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, and Benin.

sandra Babcock and human rights advocacy clinic students alexis ortiz, stella lee, and shin hahn traveled to Malawi last November to meet with defense attorneys, prosecutors, paralegals, and High Court justices about the legal status of prisoners sentenced to the mandatory death penalty. They also visited Maula prison in Lilongwe with a team of paralegals. Babcock also gave a presentation to a group of 25 public defenders and prosecutors on international standards relating to the death penalty. Students from clinic will return to Malawi with Babcock in March.

news from the Bluhm legal Clinic and northwestern university school of law

puBliCations“Legal Education and Access to Justice,” an article by tom Geraghty, (law, Bluhm Legal Clinic) is a chapter in the Danish Institute for Human Rights’s recent book Legal Aid.

“Trends in Kenyan Islam,” a research project and publication funded by the British High Commission, Kenya, was completed by hassan ndzovu (ISITA postdoctoral student; Moi University), Justin Willis (Institute of British East Africa), and Hassan Mwakimako, (Nairobi University).

“The Global Economic Crisis and the Challenges of Human Security in Africa” by samuel o. oloruntoba (PAS visiting scholar) was published in the April 2010 edition of the Nigerian Journal of Business and Social Sciences.

ConferenCe presentationsKate dargis (assistant director) pre-sented “Rationale and Agenda for the Creation of the Oral History and Per-formance as Social Action Institute for Africana Studies at PAS” at the Oral History Association of South Africa Conference in Nelspruit last October.

tom Geraghty (professor, law) and diane Geraghty (Loyola University Chicago) presented the paper “Child-Friendly Legal Aid” at a joint UNICEF/UNDP conference on legal aid held in Dakar in May 2010. UNICEF child protec-tion officers from West Africa attended. The proceedings and the paper will be published soon by UNICEF.

rebecca shereikis (ISITA coordinator) presented “Muslim Divorce in Colonial Courts: A Case Study from French Soudan (Mali)” at the workshop “The Dynamics of Muslim Legal Pluralism under Colonial Rule” at the Orientalisches Institut, Halle/Saale, Germany, in December 2010.

Marlous van waijenburg’s (history) MA thesis, “Living Standards in British Africa in a Comparative Perspective, 1880–1945: Is Poverty Destiny?,” was revised with Ewout Frankema of Utrecht University and presented as “African Real Wages in Asian Perspective, 1880–1940” at the His-torical Patterns of Development and Underdevelopment Conference in Mon-tevideo, Uruguay, in December 2010.

afriCan studies assoCiation ConferenCe presentationsandrew Brown (performance studies), “Re-imagining Queer Politics and National Identity in South Africa through Internal Queer Diaspora”

emily J. Callaci (history), “Youth, Race, and Idioms of Sovereignty in Dar es Salaam’s Nightlife in the 1950s”

Christopher r. day (political science), “Bush Paths to Self-Destruction: The Demise of the Revolutionary United Front”

pamela Khanakwa (history), “I Am Not Circumcised Myself, Just Because I Do Not See the Importance of It”: Strug-gles over Gisu Manhood and Citizen-ship in Early Postcolonial Uganda”

richard lepine (professor, African and Asian languages), “African Dimensions of the Arabian Nights”

aurelien Mauxion (anthropology), “Decentralization and the ‘Local State’ in Northern Mali: Elected Officials as Public Servants”

andreana prichard (history), “Love, Language, and National Belonging in 20th-Century Tanzania”

william reno (professor, political sci-ence), “Sierra Leone’s Armed Forces and the Challenges of Democracy and Human Security, 50 Years On”

alex thurston (religion), “Postcolonial Northern Nigerian Intellectuals, the Sokoto Caliphate, and the Search for an Islamic Political Model”

Chikwendu C. ukaegbu (professor, sociology), “Development Lag and the Imperative of Transformational Leader-ship in Sub-Saharan Africa”

aMeriCan anthropoloGiCal assoCiation ConferenCe presentationsnoah Butler (anthropology), “Authority and the Electric Bill: Women, Men, and Leadership as Livelihood in Islamic Niger”

Karen tranberg hansen (professor, anthropology), “Reclaiming the Street: Processes of Boundary Redrawing in Lusaka’s Street Economy”; also coor-ganized a panel, “Street Economies, Politics, and Social Movements in the

Community news

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research awards and funding opportunities for northwestern africanists

For applications and more information about the following, see www.northwestern.edu/african-studies/academics_awards.html.

underGraduate researCh awards Intended to encourage undergraduate research in the Herskovits Library, these awards allow students to earn two terms of credit for research in the collection that will culminate in a final project, as well as a stipend. PAS administers the program in collaboration with the Herskovits Library, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and the associate provost for undergraduate education. deadline: april 1

afriCan researCh leadership awards Grants are awarded for undergraduate students to develop, manage, and complete a project examining an African studies issue related to their academic interests and programs of study. The project may be an extension of the research/immersion experience requirement of the African studies adjunct major or of research completed in a past course. deadline: april 1

iVor G. wilKs prize in afriCan history A prize of $100 is awarded for an outstanding undergraduate essay submitted as a course requirement on an African history topic. Only faculty members may nominate essays written for their classes. The submission deadline is the start of spring quarter finals week. Contact the history department to request application materials.

hans e. panofsKy predissertation awards Established to honor the curator emeritus of the Herskovits Library, these awards support Northwestern graduate students planning to do predissertation fieldwork or archival research in Africa. They are normally granted for work during the summer, but exceptions may be made. deadline: february 14

pas worKinG Groups awards Working groups promote the development of scholarly communities whose members work together on common research interests in African studies. Groups vary in their approaches, goals, and activities, which may include organizing lectures, discussions, collaborative research, and working papers. Groups must involve at least one faculty member and must submit a final report. Graduate students and faculty are eligible to apply by providing a two-page description of the proposed working group’s purpose and plans and a budget. If the budget exceeds $5,000 (the maximum award amount), potential sources of additional funding must be specified. More information is available by contacting PAS assistant director Kate Dargis at k-dargis@northwestern.edu or calling 847-491-7325. deadline: april 30 at noon

Urban Global South,” with Lynne Milgram (Ontario College of Art and Design) and Walter Little (University of Albany)

Jean hunleth (anthropology), “Rais-ing Each Other: Gender, Generation, and Interdependence in Tuberculosis-Affected Homes in Zambia”

robert launay (professor, anthropol-ogy), “Myth and Music: The Musical Epigraphs to the Raw and the Cooked”

aurelien Mauxion (anthropology), “Ethnographic Explorations of Local Elections in Northern Mali”

Kearsley stewart (lecturer, anthropol-ogy), “The Value of the Bead” (video)

reCoGnitionGlobeMed, a student-led health ad-vocacy group working in Africa and elsewhere worldwide, was named a Top-Ten Best Practice in Global Health by the US Center for Citizen Diplomacy.

Marlous van waijenburg’s (PhD student, history) received the best MA thesis award from the Faculty of the Humani-ties of Utrecht University for “Living Standards in British Africa in a Com-parative Perspective, 1880–1945: Is Poverty Destiny?”

lydia hsu (English and African studies) won an Undergraduate Research Grant for her project “Genocide Literature: Voices from Rwanda.” Her adviser is Evan Mwangi (English).

Continued on back page

Published by Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies 620 Library Place Evanston, Illinois 60208-4110 U.S.A.

Kristine Barker, Program Assistant 4Kate Dargis, Assistant DirectorNkem Dike, REACH CoordinatorEmily Heroy, REACH Program Assistant Rebecca Shereikis, ISITA CoordinatorPhone 847-491-7323Fax 847-491-3739african-studies@northwestern.eduwww.northwestern.edu/african-studies Opinions published in PAS News and Events do not necessarily reflect the views of PAS or Northwestern University. Northwestern is an affirmative action, equal opportunity educator and employer.

©2011 Northwestern University. All rights reserved. Produced by University Relations. 1-11/300/RM-HC/1047-1

Morris GoodMan awards These awards, in honor of a linguistics professor emeritus, provide approximately $1,500 for graduate students in their second year or later to study an African language not taught at Northwestern. Awards are granted on a rolling basis. Applicants must submit letters that state their research plans, justify the need for language training, and describe how the training will be completed. If tutoring is proposed, information about the tutor is required, including a curriculum vitae. For other types of language study, students must provide such information as the strengths of the program, the syllabus, and evaluations. Send inquiries and applications to african-studies@northwestern.edu or 847-491-7323.

Guyer-VirMani awards These awards were established to honor former PAS director Jane Guyer and associate director Akbar Virmani for their dedicated support of graduate students’ intellectual development at PAS. Conferred on a one-time basis to graduate students in their third year or later, particularly to those who have completed predissertation research and already received a Panofsky Award, a Guyer-Virmani Award is normally in the range of $200–400 and is usually used to defray the cost of travel to an archive, library, or conference. Applications are considered on a rolling basis.

Gwendolen M. Carter and Kofi annan fellowships Each year PAS awards these fellowships to up to two outstanding African students admitted to Northwestern’s Graduate School for disciplinary studies of Africa leading to a PhD. Each fellowship provides three years of support, including full tuition for that period and a monthly stipend, as well as a teaching or research assistantship within the student’s department for two additional years.

John hunwiCK researCh fund Honoring professor emeritus John Hunwick (history and religious studies), this endowment supports research by Northwestern faculty and graduate students on Islam in Africa. Awards of varying amounts are given annually and may be used to fund travel to an archive, library, or field research site; to defray expenses associated with a graduate student’s presenting

a paper related to Islam and Africa at a conference; or to organize a Northwestern visit by a scholar of Islam and Africa to give a lecture, visit a class, or interact with students. Applications are considered on a rolling basis. They must include a single-spaced two-to-three page proposal detailing research, conference participation, or proposal for a visiting speaker. A detailed budget and a curriculum vitae must also be submitted. Please send applications to african-studies@northwestern.edu.

pas traVel awards All PAS faculty and students are eligible to apply for awards of up to $200 each to defray the cost of participating in a conference, usually to present a paper. Applicants may reapply each year. The application form is available from PAS program assistant Kristine Barker and must be submitted prior to the conference.

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