The Producing Knowledge In and Of Africa and the African Diaspora Series

Overview  

Knowledge Production in Africa is a highly contested topic. Recent calls have been made – both within the academy and outside it – to “decolonize” the production and circulation of knowledge about Africa. This controversy has involved new attention to institutional power dynamics in both Africa and the US academy, as well as efforts to reconceptualize key epistemological categories in Afrocentric terms. This workshop invites scholars within the humanities, social sciences and the sciences to investigate and discuss these pressing contemporary concerns.

The workshop focuses on five key themes:

  1. How does knowledge production about Africa manifest both in different and in convergent ways across disciplines?
  2. What are the ethical implications and responsibilities of scholars researching Africa in the global North?
  3. In what ways have scholarly infrastructure – including publishing platforms, institutions, conferences and research networks – emerged in both Africa and the US academy?
  4. Given the racial injustices embedded in the US and around the world, how might the fields of Black Studies and African Studies collaborate to make sense of the historical and present conjuncture?
  5. How have the racial and gendered politics surrounding the study of Africa and its diaspora shaped the institutional histories of African Studies and Black Studies at Stanford.

Sponsors: Center for Africa Studies, Stanford Humanities Center, African and African American Studies

Past Events

June
1
Date
Wed June 1st 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location:
SHC Boardroom
424 Santa Teresa Street
Stanford, CA 94305

From the mid-nineteenth century into the twentieth, African for the Africans was the banner under which a range of pan-Africanists imaginaries and…

April
6
Date
Wed April 6th 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Architect Sumayya Vally and sociologist Denise Lim both utilize multi-sensory and transdisciplinary methodologies to highlight and amplify the stories of people and things—everyday, extraordinary…

March
10
Date
Thu March 10th 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Speaker
Chouki El Hamel Professor of History in the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State University-specializing in West and Northwest Africa

In late-seventeenth-century Morocco, Sultan Mawlay Isma‘il (reigned 1672–1727) commanded his officials to enslave all black Moroccans:  that is, to buy coercively or freely those…

February
10
Date
Thu February 10th 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Speaker
Parisa Vaziri, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University

Zar, a constellation of belief and therapeutic response to spirit winds, has long been considered a ritual trace attesting to the movement of African slavery in the Indian Ocean world.…

January
20
Date
Thu January 20th 2022, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Speaker
Dr. Cajetan Iheka, Associate Professor of English, Yale University

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Cajetan Iheka on his new book, African Ecomedia: Network Forms, Planetary Politics.

November
11
Date
Thu November 11th 2021, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

Join CAS, AAAS, and the Stanford Humanities Center for a talk by Dr. Sophia Azeb, Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago.

October
20
Date
Wed October 20th 2021, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

In histories of African diaspora, marriage and migration go hand in hand.

October
6
Date
Wed October 6th 2021, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
May
12
Date
Wed May 12th 2021, 12:00pm - 1:00pm
Speaker
Sipokazi Madida

Post-apartheid heritage practice, like the rest of its kind, is a complex system characterized by conflicting and contested meanings, knowledges, policies and…

April
28
Date
Wed April 28th 2021, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

For centuries, African women have drawn on the ritual power of their genitals to perform spectacular political protests across the continent.