Summer 2004: Imagining the African Diaspora: Genealogy and Social Constructions

Module One (July 12-16)
African Diaspora Studies: Epistemologies and Methodologies

• Philomena Essed, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• David Theo Goldberg, University of California, Irvine
  

Module Two (July 19-23)
Modernity, Nation and Citizenship

• Michael Hanchard, Northwestern University

Module Three (July 26-30)
The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture

• Barnor Hesse, University of East London, The U.K.

Module Four (August 2-6)
African Diaspora: Philosophies and Ideologies

• Abiola Irele, Harvard University

Summer 2005: African Diaspora Identities

Module One (July 11-15)
Deconstructing Racial Knowledge: Questioning Methodologies

• Joseph Graves, Fairleigh University

Module Two (July 18-22)
The African Diaspora: Contesting the Heteronormative

• Professor Lola Young, Independent Scholar, The
  United Kingdom

Module Three (July 25-29)
Mapping the African Diaspora: Fragmented Geographies and Positionalities

• Nalini Persram, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Module Four (August 1-5)
African Diaspora: Hybridities Against Race?

• Shalini Puri, University of Pittsburgh

We expect the admitted seminar participants to arrive in Miami on Wednesday, July 5th, 2006. Two introductory sessions, during which theorizing about Diaspora will be discussed, will take place on Thursday, July 6th and Friday, July 7th. The conference that will mark the end of the seminar will take place on Monday, August 7th, 2006. This will give more time to the enrolled seminar participants to prepare a "final" draft of their paper, which will be presented during the conference.

Summer 2006: Performing African Diasporas

Module One (July 10-14)
Performance as Method

• E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University

Module Two (July 17-21)
Festivities and Celebrations: Aesthetics, Poetics and Politics

• Carolyn Cooper, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica

Module Three (July 24-28)
Visualizing Blackness:
Corporeality, Collectivity, and Subjectivity

• Achille Mbembe, Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, Johannesburg, South Africa

Module Four (July 31 - August 4)
Popular Culture: The Marketing of Blackness

• May Joseph, Pratt Institute

 

1. Prior to his or her arrival, the instructor will assign a list of
required readings that will be distributed to the students before the
beginning of the semester. Every module will take place over a five-day period. The session will usually take place every morning from 9:00 AM through 12:30 PM with an interruption in the middle of the time period.

2. On the Monday of his or her week-long module, the instructor will
give an early evening public lecture that will have as its objective
the presentation of his or her discussion of the module's theme. The
lecture will be followed, after a break, by an hour-long session of
questions and answers. We have regrouped these Monday evening lectures, which are open to the general public, into what we have called the "African Diaspora Summer Lecture Series." (click for more information)

3. On Tuesday, the instructor and students will discuss selected texts from the required reading list.

4. On Wednesday, six students will present a critical evaluation of a
paper written by one of their peers. The assignment of the specific
paper to be evaluated will be made by the selection committee several weeks in advance of the seminar.

5. On Thursday, each student whose paper was critically presented the day before will respond to their colleagues.

6. On Friday, the instructor will present critical commentaries on the
discussions of Wednesday and Thursday.

7. For the conference, which will take place at the close of the
seminar, each student will present a final paper. These presentations, having already been critically evaluated by peers, will reflect the refinements suggested by that critique and by the instructor's comments.

8. A conference will be held at the end of the seminar, during the
weekend directly following the last module. The conference will consist of six panels of four student papers. Each panel will have a
discussant. The students will be assigned to the six panels by the
Organizing/Selection Committee. The discussants will be invited by the Organizing/Selection Committee. The conference will be open to the public.

 

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This seminar is made possible thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation.