On campus events

Events are listed as they are scheduled, so please check this page often for updates and additions

Spring 2007

unless otherwise noted, all talks are at noon in NE 104
lunch will be served

Friday, February 9, 2007

'You're a White Man's Bahbah': Black Barbers, White Patrons, and Waiting Publics in the 19th Century
Professor Quincy Mills

This talk addresses the complicated relationship between black barbers, their white patrons, and multiple waiting publics n 19th century America. This relationship illuminates black-owned barber shops as key sites for black entrepreneurship and economic freedom for black barbers, the consumption of service and reproduction of racial ideologies for white patrons, and the contested terrain of public and private space for black and white waiting publics.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Colorblindness Washed Away: The Lessons from Hurricane Katrina
Professor Diane Harriford

The reliance on individualism and the notion of colorblindness has helped erase the DuBoisian double consciousness that long gave Black people an historical memory that connected them to the past and to other Black people and enabled them to give voice to the needs of those who are still without access to opportunity. Since the voices calling for social justice had been muted due to the rise and increased legitimacy of Black conservative leadership represented by Condoleezza Rice and others, many of those who are still mired in poverty were forgotten. This was most evident when the nation was surprised by the poverty uncovered by Hurricane Katrina. We became conscious that Black people, particularly women, and other people of color did not have the resources to escape. What we learned from Hurricane Katrina may help us recover this consciousness.

Friday, April 20, 2007

History, Memory and Denial in Contemporary Francophone African Literature
Professor Patricia Célérier

Memory is a prevalent theme in contemporary discussions of history and literature. After World War II, western societies' relationship to the past began to be reconsidered. The notions of crimes against humanity and genocide were articulated; testimonial narratives emerged, notably after the Shoah, and demands for (former) imperial powers to recognize their crimes during colonization were voiced.

The relationship between history and memory is being queried anew today for a number of reasons. The question of citizenship in (former) colonizing nations remains unresolved and, as the so-called riots of October and November 2005 in France manifest, is a sign of continuing denial and erasure. Memory is a site of theoretical tension with many asking if western discourse should be the only meaningful account for the relationship between a society and its past. The rapport between memory and oralité is re-examined.

Memory is hardly a new problematic in French-speaking African literatures, but for the past ten years, it has become the focus of its production. Writers such as Gaston-Paul Effa and J.R. Essomba look anew at the ramifications of pre-colonial African history through the epic, foundational myths, and the great genealogies. Others, such as the late Mongo Beti, Werewere Liking, and Patrice Nganang are filling some of African history’s silences and reconfiguring the memory of nationalist struggles. Others still, like Henri Lopès, use the detective novel to interrogate the relationship between different generations of Africans. Finally, the authors participating in the Duty of Memory on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda contributed to a renewed debate on the responsibility of African intellectuals and to many exchanges regarding the nature of African fiction.

This literary reworking of memory not only informs the postcolonial French-speaking world, but also translates into the elaboration of new aesthetic forms.

Fall 2006

Monday, November 1, 2006
special time and location: 5:30 p.m. in the Aula

Cultural Translations: A Reading of Poetry, Prose and Essays
Professor Patrice Nganang

Patrice Nganang has published several novels and volumes of poetry. His novel Temps de chien (Dog Days) won the 'Prix Litteraire Marguerite Yourcenar' in 2001 and the 'Grand Prix Litteraire de l'Afrique noire', Francophone Africa's most distinguished prize for literature, in 2002. A native of Cameroon, Patrice Nganang earned his doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Frankfurt in Germany before moving to the United States. He is currently serving as the Randolph Distinguished Visiting Professor of German Studies at Vassar College.

co-sponsored with the departments of French and German and the Dean’s Office

Friday, December 8, 2006

W. E. B. Du Bois and the Discourse of Sacrifice
Professor Jonathan Kahn

A crucial moral virtue of Du Bois's religious discourse is the virtue of sacrifice. His discourse of sacrifice is composed of two halves. The first half is contained in his series of parables that depict the lynching of a black Christ figures. The other half of his discourse is what he himself calls his "Gospel of Sacrifice," in which he enjoins black Americans to sacrifice for each other and white Americans to recognize black American sacrifices for the country. This paper asks why Du Bois would want to engage a discourse of sacrifice at all. Why didn't Du Bois conclude that sacrifice was an American category thoroughly rooted in blood, abuse, and suffering, and thus, forever tainted and one that society is better off working to live without? Is Du Bois able to recuperate a "Gospel of Sacrifice" during a period when African Americans were being lynched - sacrificed - at an unprecedented rate?

Spring 2006

Friday, February 10, 2006
Faculty Seminar Series: Interpreting the African Diaspora
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

To Transplant in Alien Soil: Race and Regionalism in the Age of Globalization
Eve Dunbar, Assistant Professor, English Department

Friday, March 31, 2006
Faculty Seminar Series: Interpreting the African Diaspora
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

Activists Who Yearn for Art that Transforms: Parallels in the Black Arts and Feminist Art Movements in the United States
Lisa Gail Collins, Associate Professor, Art Department

Friday, April 21, 2006
Endangered Species: Ecology and the Discourse of the Nation
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

Activists Who Yearn for Art that Transforms: Parallels in the Black Arts and Feminist Art Movements in the United States
Lisa Paravisini-Gebert, Professor, Hispanic Studies Department and Africana Studies Program

Fall 2005

Friday, October 28, 2005
Faculty Seminar Series: Interpreting the African Diaspora
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

Memory and Identity in Post-Genocide Rwanda
Tim Longman, Associate Professor, Africana Studies Program and Political Science Department

Friday, November 11, 2005
Faculty Seminar Series: Interpreting the African Diaspora
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

Viewed With a Jaundiced Eye: Panoptic Policing of Ghetto Sexuality in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place
Tyrone Simpson, Assistant Professor, English Department

Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Personal Reflections: The Legacy of Alvin Ailey
ALANA Center Community Room, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.

A talk and video presentation by Steve Rooks, Associate Professor of Dance, Resident Choreographer and former Ailey Dancer

Friday, December 9, 2005
Faculty Seminar Series: Interpreting the African Diaspora
New England 107, 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.

The Ramstein 2 and the Voice of the Lumpen
Maria Höhn, Associate Professor, History Department

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Off campus events

Events are never limited to the Vassar campus. Faculty and students frequently organize off-campus trips to lectures, conferences, and other events. In recent years, students and faculty have traveled together to a film conference at Princeton, to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (part of the New York Public Library) in Harlem; to New York's African American Burial Grounds; and to Vassar's annual international study trip, which in 2001 went to Kenya with three Africana Studies faculty members.

Sunday, December 11, 2005
4th Annual NYC Study Break Trip
Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre, located at the New York City Center

3:00 p.m. matinee, total cost $20 (a $100 value that includes Lunch/Bus/Show Ticket)
Bus departs at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday and returns to campus immediately after the show

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Previous events

February 13 , 2003 (5:30pm/Villard Room)
Literary Reading
The Second Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Memorial Literary Reading featuring poet and activist Sonia Sanchez.

April 10, 2003 (5:30pm/New England 104)
Micere Mugo, Syracuse University
"African Women, Creativity and Insurgent Gendered Discourses"

Spring, 2003 (May 8/New England Lounge)
Africana Studies Annual Barbecue
Each spring our students and faculty celebrate the end of the academic year with two important events. The first, a purely social event, is a barbecue where we can welcome incoming majors and honor a year's work well done.

Spring, 2003 (May 8/New England Lounge)
Senior Thesis Defense Day
The third annual event is Senior Thesis Defense Day, at which graduating seniors present their thesis work to student and faculty members of the program.

September 10, 2001 (5:30 p.m. preceded by a screening at 4 p.n./Villard Room)
Robert Moses
"Radical Equations: From Civil Rights to Math Literacy"
Noted Civil Rights activist Robert Moses will be kicking off the 2001-2 lecture series. After registering African American voters in the south, Moses returned to Mississippi to found the ground-breaking Algebra Project, which contends that math literacy is one of the keys to advancement. He is the co-author of the new book Radical Equations: Math Literacy and Civil Rights.
Click for press release

Fall 2001
Randoph Visiting Professor, Tayeb Salih
World-reknowned Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih will be the Randoph Visiting Professor this fall, offering a half-unit course (course title to be announced shortly).

November 7-9, 2002
Sudanic/Maghaaribi Studies Unit Symposium
Symposium Schedule

November 19 (5:30 pm in the Villard Room)
Paul Gilroy
Paul Gilroy, British sociologist and professor of African American studies at Yale, and author of The Black Atlantic and There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, will speak. Books will be available for purchase.

February 4 (5:30 in the Villard Room)
First annual Gwendolyn Brooks Memorial Literary Reading
Jamaican writer Michelle Cliff will give a reading with commentary. The reading will be of interest to those in Caribbean studies, Gay and Lesbian studies, creative writing, mixed race studies, Africana Studies, and Women's Studies. Books will be available for purchase. More information on Ms. Cliff can be found at: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Cliff.html

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