Conference in honor of distinguished UCLA History Professor Edward A. Alpers

Thursday, April 11, 2013
8:30 AM - 7:00 PM
Royce Hall 314
UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave
Los Angeles CA, CA 90095

DAY ONE - Royce Hall 314

Opening Remarks (8:30AM): Françoise Lionnet

Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center; Professor, French and Francophone Studies,

Comparative Literature and Gender Studies

SCHEDULE (subject to change):

Panel One (8:45AM – 10:45AM): West Central Africa and the Atlantic World

Chair: José C. Curto, York University

T.J. Desch-Obi, CUNY Baruch College, “Le Defi: African Diasporas and the Mascarene Martial Arts”

Shobana Shankar, Georgetown University, “Religion and Reasons for Diaspora: The Ahmadiyya in Africa”

Emily Musil Church, Lafayette College, “ ‘Vive la France, vive l’Afrique Noire!’: Race and Citizenship in the French Atlantic Empire during WWII”

Robin D.G. Kelley, UCLA, “Diasporas and Revolutions”

José C. Curto, York University, “Re-thinking the Origin of Slaves in West Central Africa”

Discussant: Sidney J. Lemelle, Professor of History and Black Studies, Pomona College

Coffee Break: 10:45AM – 11:00AM

Panel Two (11:00AM – 1:00PM): Urban and Rural Spaces in Colonial and Independent Africa

Chair: Allison Shutt, Hendrix College

Willis Okech Oyugi, UCLA, “Revisiting the 'Pastoral Cattle Complex: Commercializing the Livestock Industry in Kenya’s Maasailand, 1930s-1960s”

Ruby Bell-Gam, UCLA, “The Roots of Despair in Nigeria’s Delta Region: Commerce, Politics, and Environmental Decline”

Shimelis Bonsa Gulema, SUNY-Stony Brook, “The Politics of City Making: Addis Ababa since the 1940s”

Hideaki Suzuki, McGill University, “Banian and Port City: A Case Study of the Kachchhi Bhatiya in the Nineteenth Century Zanzibar.”

Allison Shutt, Hendrix College, “Defamation and Honor in Urban Southern Rhodesia, 1930s-1950s”

Discussant: Pier M. Larson, Professor of History, The Johns Hopkins University

Lunch Break: 1:00PM – 2:30PM

Panel Three (2:30PM – 4:30PM): Women, Gender and Sexuality in Colonial and Post- Colonial Africa

Chair: Nwando Achebe, Michigan State University

Kathleen Sheldon, Independent Scholar, “Researching the History of African Market Women”

Jamie Monson, Macalester University, “Gendered (Non)Alignment: African Women’s Delegations to China in the Cold War”

Phoebe Musandu, UCLA, “Tokenism or Representation?: Priscilla Abwao’s Nomination to Kenya’s Legislative Council in 1961”

Bridget Teboh, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, “Conflicting Agendas and Colonial Woman Palavar: Madame Maternity’s Un/likely Career Path?”

Nwando Achebe, Michigan State University “Lesbian Sex, Internet Voyeurism, and Corrective Rape at a Nigerian University”

Discussant: Margaret Strobel, Emerita Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, University of Illinois-Chicago

History Department Reception in Honor of Professor Edward Alpers

5:00PM – 7:00PM in Royce Hall 306

RSVP for reception to Zoe Rose Buonaiuto at zoe@history.ucla.edu

For more information, please contact the Organizing Committee Chair Awet T. Weldemichael at awet.tewelde@uky.edu

Pay-by-space and all-day ($11) parking available

Cost : free and open to the public

international.ucla.edu/africa/

Sponsor(s): African Studies Center, Center for Near Eastern Studies, Department of History, • Mellon Post-Doctoral Program "Cultures in Transnational Perspectives," UCLA • G.E. Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA • Division of Undergraduate Studies, UCLA • Division of Social Sciences, UCLA • Professor Robin Kelley, UCLA • Center for the Study of Women, UCLA • Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor Scott Waugh, UCLA • College of Arts and Sciences, University of Kentucky