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CHCI Africa Workshop (Addis 2019) “Emancipation, Decolonization, Freedom”
January 3, 2019 - January 18, 2019
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.
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.