Today, 23 scholars open global 'African Studies' conference in UAE

Naminata Diabate, Dagmawi Woubshet Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman and moderator Tejumola Olaniyan during the last session of Day-1 at Africa Hall, Sharjah, UAE. 

The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE, opened its maiden event Global Africa: African and African Diaspora Studies in the 21st Century, an international conference ending on March, 14 2019 at Sharjah’s historic Africa Hall.

According to the organisers, the three-day conference will assess the current state of African and African diaspora studies and interrogate new theoretical approaches through a range of interdisciplinary perspectives.
                
The conference welcomes scholars in African and African diaspora studies from around the world to present papers in their respective disciplines towards the shared goal of evaluating the past, present and future iterations of their fields. 


The conference will foster conversation about what lies ahead for African studies, especially in the context of increased globalisation and migration, compounded by the crisis of the postcolonial state, xenophobia and anti-immigration policies in Europe and North America. It will provide a platform for participants to document and lend critical understandings of the major theoretical and paradigm shifts in African and African diaspora studies, with participants presenting new, unpublished papers which will serve as the basis for a subsequent publication of the conference proceedings.

The conference consists of nine panels arranged across three days. Speakers include: Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman (Brown University); Hisham Aidi (Columbia University); Jean Allman (Washington University in St Louis); Awam Amkpa (New York University); Akosua Adomako Ampofo (University of Ghana); Kehinde Andrews (Birmingham City University); Susan Buck-Morss (Cornell University and CUNY Graduate Center); Kassahun Checole (Africa World Press); Ebony Coletu (Pennsylvania State University); Naminata Diabate (Cornell University); Manthia Diawara (New York University); Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University); Chouki El Hamel (Arizona State University); Elizabeth Wolde Giorgis (University of Addis Ababa).

Others include Catarina Gomes (Catholic University of Angola); Ousmane Kane (Harvard University); Premesh Lalu (University of Western Cape, South Africa); Zine Magubane (Boston College); Fouad Makki (Cornell University); Sandy Prita Meier (New York University); Natalie Melas (Cornell University); Sarah Nuttall (WiSER, University of the Witwatersrand); Tejumola Olaniyan (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Carina Ray (Brandeis University); Ahmad Sikainga (Ohio State University); Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò (Cornell University); Benjamin Talton (Temple University); Dagmawi Woubshet (University of Pennsylvania); and Paul Teyimba Zeleza (United States International University-Africa, Nairobi).