We at CIHA Blog would like to raise your attention to an exciting upcoming opportunity for doctoral students and early career scholars in Africa to reassert the importance of the humanities in Africa.
The first CHCI Africa Workshop, Addis 2019, will be held at Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). Hosted by the Consortium of Humanities Institutes and Centers (CHCI) in collaboration with the College of Performing and Visual Art and the Center of African Studies at Addis Ababa University, the workshop will include intensive seminars, mentoring and training workshops, and guest lectures focused on re-conceptualizing Africa as both a theoretical category and a prism to examine the contemporary world.
We encourage humanities graduate students studying in African universities and those who have received their PhDs since 2010 and are based in Africa, to apply to participate.
CIHA Blog Co-Editor, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampfoko (University of Ghana, Legon) will be one of the workshop mentors together with Carli Coetzee (Journal of African Cultural Studies), Catarina Gomes (Catholic University, Angola), and James Ogude (University of Pretoria). Thematic seminars will also be led by Simon Gikandi (Princeton University, USA), Elizabeth Giorgis (Addis), Dagmawi Woubshet (University of Pennsylvania, USA) and Mshai Mwangola (Nairobi, Kenya).
Addis 2019 will focus on redefining and multiplying the images of Africa and Africans past and present. Join the workshop by applying via the electronic form on the webpage or alternatively, via the application form here.
—
CHCI Africa Workshop – Addis 2019
January 3-18, 2019
Workshop Overview
The Addis 2019 workshop will include three intensive seminars focused on re-conceptualizing Africa as both a theoretical category and a prism to examine the contemporary world. Through art, literature, performance, and philosophy, the seminars will build on the possibility of Africa that flourished across the continent and into the diaspora during the early years of decolonization. During the course of the workshop, participants will critically engage the category of Africa itself, looking beyond both the post-Cold War focus on Africa as a metaphor for regression, decay, and urgent intervention and the limited opposition between ‘crisis’ and ‘renaissance.’ The new public debates on freedom and emancipation in the continent cut across differences framed in terms of ethnic or national affiliation, language, region, religion, or historical background. Addis 2019 will focus on redefining and multiplying the images of Africa and Africans past and present. Through intensive seminars and related activities, which will include lectures, panels, artists talks, and site visits, participants will explore a range of critical positions and cultural practices. They will reflect on current and historical modes of theorizing Africa – and develop new ones. The thematic seminars will be led by:
Simon Gikandi (Princeton University, USA)
Elizabeth Giorgis (Addis) and Dagmawi Woubshet (University of Pennsylvania, USA) Mshai Mwangola (Nairobi, Kenya)
The mentorship and training of new cohorts of graduate students in the humanities and related social sciences will form a core element of Addis 2019. In addition to the mentorship and training that will be a key aspect of the thematic seminars, practical sessions, offered throughout the two-week workshop, will focus on publication and article development; grant and proposal writing; pedagogy and syllabus development; and collaborative research. Academic leaders and journal editors will convene these sessions, they include:
Akosua Adomako Ampfoko (University of Ghana, Legon) Carli Coetzee (Journal of African Cultural Studies) Catarina Gomes (Catholic University, Angola) James Ogude (University of Pretoria)
Seminars, readings, and discussions for Addis 2019 will take place in English.
How to Apply?
We seek applications for participation in the full two-week program. We expect to select 15 participants from African universities (outside of Addis) and up to 20 local participants.
Participants from outside of Addis will receive housing and most meals during the course of the workshop, as well as reading packets and air transportation to/from Addis.
Applicants should be doctoral students at the dissertation-writing stage or early-career academics and scholars at African universities. Interested applicants who do not fit these criteria but are based in Africa should contact Guillaume Ratel.
Applications are due by June 1, 2018, via our website at https://chcinetwork.org/addis-2019-cfp. If you would prefer to apply by email, please fill out the attached pdf form and email it to Guillaume Ratel, CHCI Director of Programs (ratel@wisc.edu), together with a 1-page description of your research project, a letter of support from your advisor if you are at the thesis/dissertation stage, and your Curriculum Vitae.
Applications should include:
- A 1-page description of the applicant’s doctoral research project and why they wish to participate
- A letter of support from the applicant’s advisor
- A Curriculum Vita
- Application Form
About CHCI
Established in 1988, the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes serves as an arena for the discussion of issues germane to crossdisciplinary activity in the humanities, and as a network for the circulation of information and best practices related to the organizational and management dimensions of humanities centers and institutes. CHCI currently has a membership of over 230 organizations and affiliates in 23 countries and 46 US states. Our membership is extremely diverse and includes small, university-based humanities centers to major Institutes for Advanced Study, and from large independent organizations to research libraries. Our members are engaged in a wide range of programs, including research support, community- based programs and public humanities, internal and external fellowship programs, activism and advocacy on issues of cultural and educational policy, digital humanities programs, and the development and maintenance of research collections. CHCI produces a major Annual Meeting of its membership, maintains a directory of member organizations, and supports multiple research initiatives with a focus on the global humanities.
CHCI operations are based at the Center for the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, which provides operating and staff support.
About Addis
Currently considered one of the fastest growing cities in Africa, both economically and demographically, Addis Ababa reflects the complexities of southern urbanism. Beneath its traffic-choked, chaotic, and construction site facade, Addis is a city of historical and contemporary exchange, where the chants of Orthodox Christianity and Islam are echoed in tandem, and a diplomatic capitol, where in 1963, the Organization of African Unity, precursor to the African Union, established its home.
About the CHCI Africa Humanities Workshop
Supported by a multi-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Africa Humanities Workshops are designed to strengthen the humanities in Africa by supporting the research and training of advanced graduate students and early-career scholars. The annual workshops are sites of collaborative investigation. They include a combined focus on the development and circulation of new scholarship; collective inquiry through seminars and discussion; and training through practical workshops and professional development activities. These workshops are directed by the conviction that institutions in which individual scholars are able to thrive, collaborate, draw upon others, and create legacies are necessary elements of any project that seeks to have long term effects. The CHCI workshops are designed to be such an institution for the humanities in Africa.
CHCI Africa Humanities Initiative Program Committee: Jean Allman (Washington University, USA); Elizabeth Wolde Giorgis (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia); Premesh Lalu (University of the Western Cape, South Africa); and Juan Obarrio (Universidad de San Martin, Argentina).