NEWS AND NOTEWORTHY ACHIEVEMENTS

By Khalid El-Hassan

Elizabeth Asiedu, Assist. Professor of Economics, was the Keynote Speaker at a USAID sponsored conference "Globalization, Liberalization, and the Role of Women in Development in Africa in the 21st Century" at Wake Forest University, in September 2002. Paper presented: "African Women in a Global Economy: Absolute Progress and/or Relative Decline?" She also presented a paper at the Midwest International Economics Group Conference at the University of Notre Dame, October 14-17, 2002. Paper: "Aggressive Trade Reform and Infrastructure Development: A Solution to Africa's Foreign Direct Investment Woes?" Elizabeth presented a paper at a conference, "High-Level Seminar on The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD)," in Senegal, West Africa, December 9-11, 2002, organized by the IMF for African Heads of States and Finance Ministers. Paper: "Policy Reform and Foreign Direct Investment to Africa: Absolute Progress but Relative Decline".

Emmanuel Nnadozie, Professor of Economics, Truman State University, edited a book published recently by the Academic Press an Imprint of Elsevier Sciences. The book is titled "African Economic Development" and comprises a collection of articles written especially for the volume. It offers an authoritative statement about economic growth and development on the continent. Chapters are grouped together according to the major influences on growth and development and their effects, as well as the significant or unique problems that have slowed or undermined African growth, and the manifestations of development by country or region and by industry. While many books on regional economics become quickly outdated and overly narrow, these multidisciplinary regional studies with an economic bias will be considered cornerstones of the field for some years to come.

Saadia Malik, Research Assistant, ASRC successfully defended her doctoral dissertation on women's songs in Sudan. The final defense was conducted in the School of Telecommunication, Ohio University at Athens, Ohio on November 26, 2002. Saadia's research is a postcolonial and feminist analysis of women's songs in Sudan. It includes narratives of three famous women singers and a whole chapter of classifying and analyzing the text of this type of singing. Congratulations, Dr. Malik!

Peter Ukpokodu, Associate Professor and Chair of African & African-American Studies, recently received the coveted Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence. The "Surprise Patrol" handed out 20 $5000 Kemper Awards for excellence in teaching and advising for 2002. The W.T. Kemper Fellowships recognize outstanding teachers and advisers at KU as determined by a seven-member selection committee. The committee members include students, faculty, and KU alumni. Dr. Ukpokodu, and the other 19 winners were honored in a ceremony on Sept 17 in the Woodruff Auditorium of the Kansas Union.

A delegation from Kenyatta University, Kenya visited the University of Kansas on Thursday November 21. The delegation was part of a visiting team that includes Chancellor George Eshiwani and Deputy Vice Chancellor Olive Mugenda. They came to the United States to promote Kenyatta University summer programs and to follow up with students who participated in these programs last summer. Among them were three students from the University of Kansas. Dr. Gabriel Katana, Registrar of Academic and Dr. Nia Mwangi, Director of Institutional Linkages spoke to a full house of KU students, faculty, and staff. They first introduced Kenyatta University summer programs and then thoroughly discussed obstacles, challenges, and expectations raised by students and study abroad officials. KU students were impressed by the program and the strategy for promoting it. They all expressed an intention of participating in next summer program. The meeting was generously hosted by the Department of African and African American Studies. (More on page 6.)

(Above) Delegates of Kenyatta University discussing summer programs with KU students, faculty, and staff.

Garth Myers, associate professor of African studies and geography has been busy with a number of things at once. Running the KU link with the University of Zambia entailed coordinating the visit of four Zambian scholars to Kansas for the month of November. Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect for him was sharing his office in Lindley Hall. He said "whenever I didn't want to work, I could go into my front room and learn something new every day in sharing their experience. Right in the middle of their visit, though, I also had to read the page proofs of my book, Verandahs of Power: Colonialism and Space in Urban Africa, which will be out at about the same time as this newsletter, with Syracuse University Press."

Garth also spent some time this Fall planning his own trip to Zambia, the first leg of his Fulbright. Garth visited Lusaka with his family for two months. Summer 2003, they will all be in Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, Tanzania, for the three-month second leg of the Fulbright. His overall goal is the analysis of participatory urban planning for sustainable development in the midst of democratic transitions in Zambia and Tanzania. The specific focus in Lusaka is on the partnerships of the Lusaka City Council with community-based organizations in two peri-urban neighborhoods (they are called "compounds" or "komboni" in Lusaka Chinyanja, but officially also are called peri-urban areas, unplanned areas, informal settlements, or, lately, improvement areas). He is collaborating with Wilma Nchito and a fourth-year geography major, Mweetwa Mudenda, in examining the efforts of the Council - which is, as of December 2001 entirely comprised of opposition party councilors - to partner with CBOs in Ng'ombe and Kamanga settlements in solid waste management, as an outgrowth of Lusaka's local office of the UN Sustainable Cities Program. Such collaboration has become seriously problematic as of December 5, 2002, when the Council began a program of demolitions of illegal settlements on the edges of half a dozen compounds, including these two. One demolition effort in a different compound area just two kilometers east of where we are living met with massive resistance. The situation was highly politicized by the Council's rivalry with the ruling party operatives who had sold the plots in the first place, as well as its ambiguous relationship with the police force loyal to the central government. All of this ended with great violence and tragic loss of life, followed by flooding a week later.

Garth is also reviewing a book called "Uniting a Divided City," about Johannesburg, he said "but my first two weeks in Lusaka this time have given stark examples of just how much of a divided city this one is too. On the other hand, it is 30 degrees Celsius instead of Fahrenheit and the mangoes are ripe. Other than Phebe's interesting fall out of a mango tree in pursuit of said ripe mangoes and Atlee's unpleasant encounter with an invasion of flying ants, the children seem to be enjoying their new digs. Melanie seems to be more than adjusted to the absence of the stresses of assistant deanship, and I could get used to this business about sending final grades in from a distance"

The 17th Annual Black Leadership Symposium was organized at the Kansas Union on October 31, 2002. The symposium brought almost 500 African American high school students and teachers from Kansas and the Kansas City area to KU for a day of workshops and speeches to encourage them to pursue postsecondary education and to assume leadership roles in their communities. The theme for this year's symposium was "Preparing African American Youth for Global Leadership." The keynote speaker was Delano Lewis, KU alumnus and former ambassador to South Africa. Provost Shulenburger addressed the symposium and thanked Jacob Gordon, Executive Director of the Center for Multicultural Leadership for his deliberate effort in organizing the workshop. Congratulations, Professor Gordon.

Alhaji Papa Susso, the Gambian artist visited KU from 9/21 to 9/25 . Papa Susso talked and performed to KU students in many Africanist classes including Music History, Music in World Cultures, Introduction to West Africa, Cultural Psychology, Introduction to African Literature, Introduction to African History, and Introduction to African studies 103. In these classes, Susso talked about the role of the griot among the Mandinka ethnic group and Gambian cultural traditions in general. He also talked about the kora (African musical instrument), and about what the students might experience if they were to visit The Gambia. Papa Susso also sang songs and played the kora for KU students. This is the second visit of Papa Susso to KU after his first visit last spring. His warm and friendly demeanor and his love of fun make him popular among KU faculty and students.

The KU research working group on contemporary African immigration organized a linked panel and roundtable exploring recent settlement of African immigrants in the US Midwest as it relates to diversity and multiculturalism in the region and draw conclusions about implications for further research, particularly an exploration of possible actions to help smooth the settlement and adjustment of these populations in American society. The KU researchers also discussed the necessity for developing a research agenda for comparative immigration studies in the region, introduce the intellectual community in the Midwest to this research, and encourage and foster research activities in the area. The first panel was presented to the 8th Annual Meeting of the Mid America Alliance for African Studies (MAAAS) at Norman, OK on September and the second to the 45th Annual meeting of the national African Studies Association (ASA) at Washington DC, December, 2002.

Surendra Bhana, professor of history at KU continues his research on South Africa. Professor Bhana and Dr Goolam Vahed, a scholar from South Africa are working on a study entitled "The Making of a Social Reformer: Gandhi in South Africa." This past summer, Surendra visited archives and libraries in South Africa, and had working sessions with Dr Vahed. They hope to finalize the project by June 2003, and are looking at a publication date in 2004 or 2005.

Obioma G. Nnaemeka Professor and Director of Women's Studies, Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana and President of the Association of African Women Scholars visited KU on Wednesday October 9. 2002. Professor Nnaemeka presented a public lecture entitled "Theorizing African Feminisms." The visit was sponsored by the Women's Studies Program at KU.

Ken Lohrentz (KU Libraries) and Liz MacGonagle (History/African & African-American Studies) have received funding from KU's Digital Library Initiative and ASRC to enhance access and heighten interest in a collection of Nigerian popular literature from the 1960's held in the Spencer Research Library at KU. The project, titled "Voices from the Bookstalls of an African Market: Digitizing Onitsha Market Literature," seeks to digitize a representative sample of KU's unique collection and create a companion website to highlight the historical significance and intellectual content of this popular literature.

Included in the collection are stories, plays, advice and moral discourses that were all published by local presses in the 1960s in the lively market town of Onitsha, an important commercial center in the Igbo-speaking region of southeastern Nigeria. The chaos, color and noise of Africa's largest market come alive in the fresh and vigorous genre of Onitsha market literature. Many pamphlets were handbooks offering advice in the face of adversity-grave or light. Much of the literature focuses on love relationships and illustrates a moral as the drama ends in disaster. Some of the booklets detail trials and tribulations that a protagonist must overcome to achieve success in the fast-paced urban environment of West Africa.

These voices from the bookstalls of an African market provide valuable perspectives on a wide range of themes of potential interest not only to students and scholars at the University of Kansas but also to a wider audience. Numerous faculty members at KU and other national and international institutions have expressed an interest in using a digital collection of Onitsha materials to enhance their teaching and research. Some materials should be available on the Internet by July 2003.

Kiran Jayaram has been appointed as ASRC Outreach Assistant. He is responsible now for the ASRC website, newsletter, and projected outreach activities to school, business, and the surrounding communities. Kiran is also a lecturer of African and African American Studies since 2000. He teaches Elementary Haitian I, Elementary Haitian II, Intermediate Haitian, Intermediate Haitian II , and Haiti's Roots Movement: Cultural Politics and Identity. His research interest is in cultural politics; identity politics; popular culture, especially music. It also includes transnationalism; Diaspora studies; Kongo transatlantic studies; Haitian Voodoo. Haiti, Cuba, Latin America, African diaspora. He is fluent in Haitian, proficient in Spanish, and has a reading knowledge of French. He is currently working towards his Ph.D. in Anthropology at KU. Welcome, Kiran.