The African Studies Workshop at Harvard continues this year with a new and exciting schedule of presenters. The presenters' papers explore Africa’s changing place in the world - and the new economies, legalities, socialities, and cultural forms that have arisen there. We...

This year's Hakeem and Myma Belo-Osagie Lecture on African Business and Entrepreneurship will feature Kola Karim, CEO and Managing Director, Shoreline Energy International.

Livestream link for those who wish to join virtually: https://youtu.be/mNp8F3ji8Nw

ORGANIZER: Harvard University Center for African Studies...

Adam Habib is an academic, researcher, activist, administrator, and renowned political commentator and columnist. Habib is currently the Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). He is also the Chair of Universities South Africa, which represents vice-chancellors and higher education in the country. He will present #FeesMustFall and the Advancement of Social Justice. Discussant: Lawrence Bobo.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the ...

Daniel Jordan Smith joined the Department of Anthropology at Brown University in 2001. He received an AB in Sociology from Harvard University in 1983, a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1989, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Emory University in 1999. He will present Every Household Is Its Own Local Government: Informal Economies and Entrepreneurial Infrastructure in Nigeria. Discussant: Jacob Olupona.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the ...

Lauren Coyle Rosen is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. She trained as a cultural anthropologist and as a lawyer. She received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago (2014) and a J.D. from Harvard Law School (2008). Her research and teaching interests lie at the intersections of legal and political anthropology, critical theory, historical ethnography, epistemology, spirituality, subjectivity, psychoanalysis, capitalism, dialectics, and symbolic power. She will present Spectral Laws of Gold in Ghana. Discussant: Emmanuel...

Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi received a PhD in the History of Art and Archaeology from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and her historical and ethnographic research focuses on spatial politics, urbanisms, and modernist culture and discourses, drawing from primary research in East Africa and South Asia.  She joins Barnard College, Columbia University in 2018. Anooradha is a current Fellow at the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University. She will present Domesticating the Margin in East Africa," and examines the construction of the East...

Joanna Davidson is an Assistant Professor at Boston University. She is a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include cultural conceptions of knowledge, anthropological engagements with development, and the politics of storytelling. Dr. Davidson has conducted ethnographic research in Guinea-Bissau since 1999, where she has focused on rural West Africans’ responses to environmental and economic change. She will present The Problem of Widows: Making and Unmaking Marriage in Rural West Africa. Discussant: George Meiu.

A week in advance, the...

Julie Kleinman is an urban anthropologist working in France and francophone West Africa. Her research examines how migration changes urban spaces and social relations. From Spring 2018, she is a McMillan-Stewart Fellow at the Hutchins Center’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute of Harvard University. She will present Freedoms to Circulate: Rethinking Borders and Belonging Through West African Mobility. Discussant: Ingrid Monson.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the ...

Sindiso Mnisi Weeks is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy of Excluded Populations in the School for Global Inclusion and Social Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Public Law at the University of Cape Town (UCT).  She will present Disempowering Rights: The Unintended Consequences of Rights Discourse(s) in South Africa's Legal Culture Clash. Discussant: Lucie White.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the ...

Tendayi Sithole is associate professor at the Department of Political Sciences, University of South Africa. He is the author of Steve Biko: Decolonial Meditations of Black Consciousness (Landham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016).  He will present Decolonizing Decolonization: Chinweizu's Critique of Africa's Maldevelopment. Discussant: Sebastian Jackson.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the Harvard African Studies...

David Amponsah is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. His research focuses on the history of religion in Africa and its diaspora. He will present Enchanted Geography: India in the West African Popular Imagination. Discussant: Lydia Walker.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the Harvard African Studies Workshop listserv. It is assumed that everyone has read the paper before the workshop....

Dr. Doughty is a political / legal anthropologist with geographic focus in Africa, particularly in Rwanda, where she has been conducting ethnographic research since 2002. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania (2011), and has been on the faculty at the University of Rochester since 2012. She will present Converting Threats to Power: Methane Extraction on Lake Kivu. Discussant: Pauline Peters.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the ...

Kenda Mutongi is Professor of African History at Williams College and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Professor of History at MIT. Her research interests include: Modern Africa (focus on eastern and southern Africa); Women’s and Gender History; Political Economy; Urban History; Historical Ethnography; and Business History. At Williams College, Mutongi has served as chair of the Africana Studies and the Africa/Middle Eastern Studies Programs, is on the editorial boards of several journals in African Studies, and teaches a wide range of courses in the history of...

Shireen Hassim is Professor of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, currently based at WiSER. She studied at the Universities of Durban-Westville and Natal, and obtained her PhD from York University (Canada). She will present Liminality, identity and the politics of race in South Africa: Fatima Meer and black consciousness. 

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the Harvard African Studies Workshop listserv. It is...

Dr. Hélène Neveu Kringelbach is a Lecturer in African Studies at University College London. She has carried out fieldwork in Senegal, France and the UK. She will present Love and family across borders: the Senegalese experience.

A week in advance, the presenter’s paper will be circulated through the Harvard African Studies Workshop listserv. It is assumed that everyone has read the paper before the workshop.  After presentation and commentary, Workshop...