AAA First Meeting for Winter Quarter Hey Guys, So by the time you read this you will all have hopefully gone to our terrific screening of: The First Grader: The blog will be updated weekly, but if I come across a particularly interesting story, blog, or event I will of course post that as well. The blog will cover upcoming events for AAA, as well as our upcoming conference. I will also post about interesting news or events that I come across throughout the week. Because my interests are primarily focused in politics I will be posting about those issues a great deal. Therefore, I will need all of your help to make sure that this is as well rounded a blog as possible. Please feel free to email me at either africanactivists@gmail.com or rushperez@gmail.com if you come across anything you think should go up. Below are a a few blogs that I have run across when I should have been doing my course work enjoy! This is a great blog about issues facing the continent with scholarly contributions from all around the world: http://africanarguments.org/ Also here are a few region specific blogs this one focuses on the ongoing conflict in the Eastern DRC: http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/ these two newspapers are both from East Africa and are always excellent if you want to keep up with the politics in that area (I was introduced to both of these by Ben): http://www.monitor.co.ug/ http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/ Here is another blog about African films it's a bit gossipy, but definitely a place to go if you want to keep up with African film trends be they in Nollywood, Ghana, Kenya, or South Africa: http://myafricanmoviereviews.blogspot.com/ This is a podcast that posts about an hour worth of music from the continent every month, the music ranges from High Life to Bonga Flava: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-africa-online-mixes/id347670695 And finally here is a link to Aljazeera's terrific program Africa Investigates: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/africainvestigates/2011/10/20111030104118185817.html Again if anyone thinks there is something missing, and I am sure there is, please do not hesitate to email me and let me know I am more than happy to post anything related to the continent.

EVENTS

The African Activist Association at UCLA presents the 6th Annual Graduate Student Colloquium on

“Women Agency in Africa: Role, Motivation and Voice”

Friday, May 20 – Saturday, May 21, 2011

Fowler Museum at UCLA

Free and open to the public

Friday, May 20 Keynote Address by Muadi Mukenge

Regional Director for Sub-Saharan Africa, Global Fund for Women

Topic: “Who Will Fund the Revolution: Women’s Funds and Social Justice in Africa”

Performances by Wilfried Souly, World Arts and Cultures, and Horoya Kan Group (‘The Sound of Freedom’)

Friday, May 20 Preliminary Schedule:

6:00pm: Reception and Refreshments

6:30pm: Wilfried Souly, World Arts and Cultures Performance

7:00pm: Keynote Address by Muadi Mukenge

7:30pm: Horoya Kan Group (“The Sound of Freedom”)

8:30pm: Closing

Saturday, May 21 – 10am at the Fowler Museum Lenart Auditorium -- Panel Discussions (subject to change)

Panel I -- Cinematic Representations of Women in Africa (10am-11:30am)

Moderator: Claudia Hoffmann, Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow and Visiting Interdepartmental Program in African Studies and the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media

· Dana Turken (Film and Television, UCLA): "Storytelling and Silence: Identity Re-Construction in Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust"

· Nina Lavelanet (Film and Television, UCLA): “The Roses and gifts are like a machine-gun against your neck”: The Politics of Haitian Female Sexuality in Heading South (Vers le Sud)

· Elinam Dellor (Public Health, UCLA): "Modernity and Women's Sexuality in Nigerian Film"

· Jane'a Johnson (Film and Television, UCLA): "What If Mary Was An Illegal African Immigrant? The Children of Men as a Near-Future Nativity Story"

· Alexander Woodman (African-American Studies, UCLA): "Struggle of Perceptibility"

Panel II - Artistic Representations of Women Agency in Africa (11:45am-1:00pm)

Moderator: Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts, Professor, Worlds Arts & Cultures, UCLA

· Mary (Polly) Nooter Roberts (Worlds Arts and Cultures, UCLA): "African Women at the Cutting Edge of Power and Resistance"

· Casey O'Neil (Applied Linguistics, UCLA): "Powerlessness of Women: A Study of Referential Expressions in the Music Industry"

· Charmaine Lang (African World Literature and Rhetoric, CSU Dominguez Hills): "Authentic Voice, Agency and Empowerments: Teaching the Works of Ama Ata Aiodoo"

· Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba (Art History, University of Port Harcourt): “Implications of Texts in Analyzing Material Culture: A Case of Olokun Shrine Sculptures”

Lunch: 1:00pm to 2:30pm on the Fowler Terrace – Lunch is provided free to conference attendees, East African cuisine

Panel III - Gender Representations of Women in Africa (2:30-3:45pm)

Moderator: Edith M. Omwami, Assistant Professor, School of Education, UCLA

· Barbara Goldberg (Founder, Wells Brings Hope): "Transforming the Lives of Women in West Africa"

· Clemence Pinaud (History, University of Sorbonne, Paris): "From Huts to the Front: Women's Roles in Southern Sudan's Civil War”

· Sarah Watkins (History, University of California, Santa Barbara): “The Triumph of the Wife: Sex, Gender and the State in Nineteenth Century Rwanda”

· Amanda Silver-Westrick (Geography, UCLA): “Gender Roles and Inequalities Regarding Domestic Water Acquisition in Guede”

Co-Sponsors:

UCLA James S. Coleman African Studies Center (UCLA)

Fowler Museum at UCLA

UCLA International Institute

UCLA Graduate Students Association

UCLA Campus Programs Committee (CPC)

USA for Africa

African Education Project (UCLA)

African Activist Association:

Co-Chair: Deborah Dauda

Co-Chair: Adaeze Nnamani

Treasurer: Anne Mueller

Secretary: Farah Abdi

Public Relations: Ridwa Abdi

Planning Committee: Cynthia Ugwuibe, Brian Smithson, Lafayette Gaston

Free and open to the public; pay-by-space and all-day parking ($10) available in lot 4

(enter UCLA at Westwood Plaza and Sunset Blvd., off Sunset).

For more information, email africanactivists@gmail.com or call 310-825-3686 or visit www.international.ucla.edu/africa

AAA 6th Annual Colloquium: Call for Papers!

The African Activists Association of UCLA Presents our

6^th annual colloquium

Women Agency in Africa:

Role, Motivation, and Voice

Africa is a continent with rich culture and filled with natural resources. However, women of this continent for a long time have faced severe challenges that have affected their well being, health, and effective participation in the continent. Such challenges include infant mortality at childbirth, female genital mutilation, gender violence, gender discrimination in the business world as well as the political arena, etc. The aim of this conference is to shed more light on women agency in Africa and their roles in mitigating the issues facing women, men and children in Africa. The conference seeks to bring together scholars and students who specialize in a variety of fields (e.g. economics, political science, history, women studies, public health, world arts and cultures, language, etc.), and members of the community who are interested in the issues women face and women roles in mitigating issues that are not only peculiar to women in Africa, but to all of Africa. We welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines and fields including but not limited to:

*Public Health Religion/Philosophy*

*History Arts*

*Education Political Science*

*Economics Agricultural Science*

*Psychology Linguistics*

*Geography*


Abstracts and papers must be submitted in English. Individual presentations may not exceed 15 minutes. Please submit abstract of 250-500 words by email to:

africanactivists@gmail.com

Submit it no later than April 1, 2011.
The body of the email should contain the title of the presentation, your name, institutional affiliation, address, email address, and phone number. The abstract should be sent as a Microsoft Word attachment. Participants will be notified of acceptance via email. Everyone is welcome to submit and we look forward to hearing from you-The African Activists Association at UCLA.

*QUESTIONS? Contact the African Activist Association (AAA) at:

africanactivists@gmail.com

About the African Activist Association (AAA) at UCLA:
AAA was started over 35 years ago by activist graduate students at UCLA and is one of the oldest Africanist students activist organizations in the US. Currently, the mission of AAA is to provide a forum through which Africanists across disciplines can collaborate to increase awareness of issues concerning Africa. AAA aims to encourage positive and productive discourse about Africa both within the UCLA community and beyond.

The AAA Conference ! May 14 & 15 @ UCLA

Hey Loves,

So, in case you're unfamiliar with The African Activists Association, we are a UCLA student group committed to generating cultural and political awareness about Africa and its diasporas. We achieve this by organizing annual student colloquiums that bring together new scholarship pertaining to various topics on the countries of Africa. We organize quarterly African Film Screenings, Spoken Word and Performance Art benefits, gallery exhibitions, and other means through which we seek to counter some of the misrepresentations of Africa and the world in general in popular media.

Next week on Friday and Saturday is our 5th annual academic shindig and we would dearly like to see you there. Your colleagues a.k.a. scholars from UCLA and beyond will be giving presentations about their work. Additionally we will have the divine pleasure of seeing a great Senegalese music group, documentary and spoken word poetry (I've just been told I'm supposed to read something, so you might hear me speak for about 95 seconds). Our keynote this year is a special guest because she is an African Studies Alumni. We've decided to scrap the whole hierarchical patterns of having tenured faculty highlight our event - we want scholars who kick ass and that is exactly what Myralyn Nartey does!

Bellow is a schedule. Nourishment will be provided as well.

Senegalese dance and drumming by Baye Fall Yi – recently performing onstage with Baaba Maal – excellent, informative presentations, film screening of the latest documentary on Fela Kuti, A Slice of Fela – the African Activist Association conference promises to be another great event this year!

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The African Activist Association at UCLA

Fifth Annual Conference



The Conflict of Re-Presentation: Re-Presenting Conflict in Africa



May 14 – 15, 2010



Neuroscience Research Bldg. Auditorium

635 Charles E. Young Drive, South

(Corner of Charles E. Young Dr. South & Structure 9)



Friday, May 14 -- 5:30 pm - 9:30 PM

Saturday, May 15 -- 9:30 am – 4:30 PM



Free and open to the public; everyone welcome!

Pay-by-space and all-day ($10) parking available



Schedule:

(Subject to change)



Friday, May 14, 2010



5:30 PM: Reception

6:15 PM: Baye Fall Yi -- Senegalese Dance and Drum Troupe

6:45 PM: Keynote Address by Myralyn O. A. Nartey, Doctoral Student, UCLA School of Public Health

7:15 PM: Spoken Word Performances

8:00 – 9:30 PM: A Slice of Fela Film Screening

Documentary featuring amazing in-concert footage and more of the great Fela Kuti!



Saturday, May 15, 2010



9:30 AM: Continental Breakfast



10:15 – 11:15 AM: Panel I: Violence, Immigration and the State

Moderator: Ghislaine Lydon, UCLA Department of History

· Ann Anaebere, UCLA School of Nursing

“Concept Analysis: Exploring Health Consideration for Aging Nigerian Immigrants in the United States”

· Diana Burnett, Yale Divinity School

“Interrogating the Interstices of Race, Religion & Health in a Transnational Context”

· Marvin Boateng, California Lutheran University

“The New Progress Philosophy: Addressing Development and Psychology from the Traditional Perspective”



11:30 AM – 1:00 PM: Panel II: Gender, Violence and Sexuality

Moderator: Nandini Gunewardena, International Development Studies, International Institute

· Amber Murrey-Ndewa, Syracuse University

“A Myth of Benign Humanitarianism, Militarism and Women’s Rights: A Case Study of the Chad–Cameroon Oil Pipeline”

· Dayo Spencer, UCLA School of Public Health

“Relating Modernity, Conflict and Sexual Violence: Discourses of Violence against Women in Post-war Sierra Leone”

· Kristina Benson, UCLA Islamic Studies

“North African Women in Madrid: Intersections of Race, Religion and Gender and the 2004 Law Against Gender Violence”

· Tina Beyene, UCLA Department of Women’s Studies

“Transnational and Postcolonial Feminist Interpretations of Gender- based Violence in Conflict Zones”

· Rayed Khedher, UCLA Department of Anthropology

“Tracing the Development of the Code of Personal Status: The Tunisian Case”



1:00 PM: Lunch



2:00 – 3:00 PM: Panel III: Art, Activism and Music

Moderator: Damola Osnulu, PhD student, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures

· Christopher Mlalazi, Villa Aurora “Writer in Exile” Feuchtwanger Fellow

“The State and the Performing Arts in Zimbabwe—Friends or Foe?”

· Natasha Himmelman, University of Cape Town

“Hating the Postcolony Properly: Hip Hop Aesthetics in Kenya”

· Amber Reed, UCLA Department of Anthropology

“Creating New Leaders: Youth Involvement in Community Activism in South Africa”



3:15 – 4:30 PM: Panel IV: Navigating Space, Culture and Nationalism

· Duncan Yoon, UCLA Department of Comparative Literature

“Space and Time in Socialist Tanzania: The Dodoma Capital Project”

· Kim Foulds, UCLA School of Education

“A Conflicted Curriculum Students’ Perceptions of Gender in Kenyan Social Studies Textbooks

· Tiffany Man, UCLA International Development Studies

“Chinese Presence in Africa: Trade, Investment, Diplomatic and Cultural Ties”

· Willis Oyugi, UCLA Department of History

“Human–Wildlife Conflicts and Maasai Group Ranches in Kenya”



4:30 PM: Closing Ceremony



We hope you can join us!!



Abstracts and speakers’ bios attached.



The African Activists Association gratefully appreciates its co-sponsors.

· Nnamdi Moweta of Radio Afrodicia, KPFK 90.7 FM

· UCLA African Studies Center