West Coast Regional Conference on West Africa

West Coast Regional Conference on West Africa
#WestCoast_WestAfrica21

Register to Attend

Registration is required and free. Register here: https://berkeley.zoom.us/webinar/register/3416226719560/WN_TFvro6psTm–HIuRwnA-5A

Program

MONDAY, JUNE 28

9:00am-10:15am PDT ~ Welcome and Keynote: Amplifying the Voices of African Artists

• Chair: Rachel Jean-Baptiste, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Davis
• Keynote speaker: Adenrele Sonariwo, Founder of Rele Art Gallery, Los Angeles
• Discussant: Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Professor of Arts and Visual Cultures of Global Africa, University of California, Santa Barbara

11:00am-12:15pm PDT ~ State Intervention and Economic Development

• Chair/discussant: Martha Wilfahrt, Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley
• Martha C. Johnson, Associate Professor, Mills College
  Patronage Politics, Revenue Imperatives, and Bureaucratic Capacity in African States
• Michael Kevane, Associate Professor, Santa Clara University
  Ethnicity, public goods, and elections in Burkina Faso: Insights for the insurgency of 2016-21
• Erin Litzow, Graduate Student, University of British Columbia
  Evaluating the impacts of cooking interventions in rural Senegal: The case of domestic biogas digesters

2:30pm-3:30pm PDT ~ Representation in Postcolonial Transnational Literature

• Chair/discussant: Ivy Mills, Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley
• Utitofon Inyang, Graduate Student, University of California, Riverside
  Africanizing Julius: Yoruba Epistemologies and the Limits of Aesthetic Vision in Teju Cole’s Open City
• Sanyu Mulira, Graduate Student, NYU
  Beyond So long a Letter: The Revolutionary life of Mariama Bâ

4:00-5:00pm PDT ~ Agents of Oral and Literary Traditions

• Chair/discussant: Andrew Apter, Professor, University of California, Los Angeles
• Bright Alozie, Assistant Professor, Portland State University
  From Traditions of Orality to “Voices in Ink”: Making Sense of Oral Tradition and Petitions in Precolonial and Colonial Igboland, Nigeria
• Ibrahim Anoba, Graduate Student, University of California, Davis
  Taáni Ìmọ̀ Odù Ifá: Engaging Boundary Mechanisms in Discursive and Critical Appreciation of the Ifá Literary Corpus

TUESDAY, JUNE 29

9:00am-10:00am PDT ~ Family Planning and Education: High-yield investments for the Sahel Region

• Malcolm Potts, Bixby Professor Emeritus, Berkeley Public Health, UC Berkeley
• Brooke Escobar, Research Affiliate, OASIS
• Daniel Perlman, Project Scientist, OASIS

10:30am-11:30am PDT ~ Local Control and Peacebuilding in Côte d’Ivoire

• Chair/discussant: Rachel Sigman, Assistant Professor, Naval Postgraduate School
• Jeremy Speight, Associate Professor, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
  Elite Coalitions and Rebel Social Control in Northern Côte d’Ivoire (2002-2011)
• Francis Abugbilla, Graduate Student, University of Washington
  Opportunities and challenges of incorporating African peacebuilding mechanisms in transitional justice: A case study of Côte d’Ivoire

12:00pm -1:00pm PDT ~ Structural Violence and Collective Memory

• Chair/discussant: Isidore Lobnibe, Professor, Western Oregon University
• Ebelechukwu Eseka, Researcher, University of California, San Diego
  “This Berlin Wall that Runs through Me”: Making Sense of the Postcolonial African AlieNation
• Cullen Goldblatt, Independent Scholar
  Beyond Collective Memory: Cinéma Thiaroye

2:00pm-3:00pm PDT ~ Conceptualization and Consequences of Gender in African History

• Chair/discussant: Jody Benjamin, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside
• Sarah Zimmerman, Associate Professor, Western Washington University
  The Gendered Consequences of Emancipation and Citizenship on Nineteenth-Century Gorée Island
• Oluwasola Daniels, Graduate Student, University of California, Davis
  Connections and Disruptions in Dialogue: Boundaries and Fluidity of African Gender

4:00pm-5:00pm PDT ~ Building a Sustainable Future for Research and Teaching on Africa in the West

• Chair: Muey Saeteurn, Assistant Professor, University of California, Merced
• Trevor Getz, Professor, San Francisco State University
• Karla Kirk, Instructor, Fresno City College
• Summer Trentin, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Here is a downloadable PDF of the Program.

The members of the organizing committee are Ademide Adelusi-Adeluyi (UC Riverside), Leonardo Arriola (UC Berkeley), Rachel Jean-Baptiste (UC Davis), Melanie Phillips (UC Berkeley), Martha Saavedra (UC Berkeley), and Muey Saeteurn (UC Merced).If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Melanie Phillips at melaniephillips@berkeley.edu.