This workshop brings together scholars working on Africa and the African Diaspora in the Northeast United States. Participants will discuss their work, find commonalities with other scholars, and learn about new directions in the study of African history. For more information, and to RSVP, please contact Jackie Rios at
jsr62@drexel.edu.
Co-sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Africana Studies Program and History Department at Drexel University, and the Department of Africana Studies and the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
8:15am-8:45am: Continental Breakfast
8:45am-9:00am: Opening Remarks by Donna Murasko, PhD, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Drexel University
9:00am-10:15am: Reading Islam in a Global Context
Chair: Lee Cassanelli, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Jeremy Dell, University of Pennsylvania — Commenting on the Qur'an in Wolof: The Tafsir of Muhammadu Dem
Coleman Donaldson, University of Pennsylvania — Colonial & Koranic Language Policy and the Birth of N’ko in Post-War French West Africa-
Morgan Robinson, Princeton University —“Enthusiasm among bibis”: The Interplay of Gender, Religion, and Race on Zanzibar, c.1864-1900
Rasul Miller, University of Pennsylvania — Black Muslim Racial Reimaginings
10:30am-11:30am: Migration and Global Circulations
Chair: Rachel Reynolds, PhD, Drexel University
Kelly Duke Bryant, PhD, Rowan University — A “Precarious Situation”: Repatriation and West African Migrants in France, 1895-1907
Carly Goodman, Temple University — Bushfalling, not aller au front: The American Visa Lottery in Bilingual Cameroon
Marcia Schenck, Princeton University — Diverging Memories of Mozambican Labor Migration to East Germany: The State’s Nightmare and the Magermans’ Dream
11:45am-1:00pm: Medicine and Health
Chair: Emmanuel Krieke, PhD, Princeton University
Luke Messac, University of Pennsylvania — Legacies of interwar colonial health research: from improving nutrition to fostering a capitalist ethos in British Africa, 1920-1953
Alex Otieno, Arcadia University — The Political and Social History of HIV in Kenya: Case for a Global Health Governance Perspective
Jeremy Rich, PhD, Marywood University — Operation Doctor: Canadian and US Medical Volunteers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 1960-1978
Emily Callaci, PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison — Contraception and the Postcolony: Negotiating Coercion and Care in Tanzania’s 1974 Depo Provera Controversy
1:00pm-2:00pm: Lunch
2:00pm-3:15pm: State Formation
Chair: Tukufu Zuberi, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
Geoffrey Traugh, New York University — Quota-Busters and the Popular Economies of Tobacco in Malawi, 1960s-1980s
Keri Lambert, Yale University — Tapping Ghanaians: Kwame Nkrumah’s Rubber Scheme, 1958-68
Ali Dinar, PhD, University of Pennsylvania — Demarcating and Negotiating Colonial and local Boundaries of Darfur (Sudan), 1785-1924
Baba Jallow, PhD, La Salle University — Neocolonial Rejectionism: Pseudo-Nationalism, Political Escapism, and Dictatorship in Post-Colonial Africa
3:30pm-4:30pm: The Invention of Africa(s)
Chair: Carolyn Brown, PhD, Rutgers University
Brian Yates, PhD, St. Joseph’s University — British Fillings in the Ethiopian Dabbo: 19th century British Notions and Uses of Ethiopian Identities
Kwasi Konadu, PhD, Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York — Making Atlantic Africa and the “Modern” World: The Pan-European Scramble for Africa
Mathew Unangst, Temple University — Swahili Geographies and the Invention of Hinterland
4:45pm-5:45pm: Gender, Masculinity, and Female Agency
Chair: Abosede George, PhD, Barnard College
Angela Thompsell, PhD, The College at Brockport, The State University of New York — A Question of Masculinity: Reconsidering the Encounters of Exploration
Meredeth Turshen, D.Phil, Rutgers University — The Enduring Impact of Domestic Slavery on Women’s Status: Case Studies of Congo and Sierra Leone
Chika Okoye, Rutgers University — Responses to Globalization: Market Women’s Use of Culturally Familiar Funding Methods
5:45pm-6:00pm: Closing Remarks by Tukufu Zuberi, PhD
