@ Wes

African Studies Courses at Wesleyan

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

While many offerings will take place this Spring, we do have a few courses offered this Fall, including:
West African Dance I
West African Dance II
West African Music and Culture (Beginners)
West African Music and Culture (Advanced)
Africa in World Politics

For some reason, several other courses are not yet listed online as African Studies courses, but should be of interest:
Global Africa, Anthropology 110
Critical Global Health, Anthropology 316
Jungle and Desert in Francophone African Literature, French 382

Keep in mind there are many other courses that naturally overlap with an interest in Africa, including language courses in Arabic, French and Portuguese, Comparative Politics in the Middle East (includes North Africa), and courses on the African Diaspora (look at African American Studies and American Studies lists).

Please contact me if you have any questions about the applicability of such courses towards our African Studies Minor.

Fall 2015 Notes

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

Classes are about to start!

This semester, you can find out more about my courses via the following websites (which are in the process of being updated this week).

International Law: http://internationallaw.site.wesleyan.edu/

Africa in World Politics: http://africanworldpolitics.site.wesleyan.edu/

My office hours are tentatively scheduled for Tuesdays, 11 am – 12 noon, and by appointment. I will add more hours as the rest of the semester’s schedule gets nailed down.

– Prof N.

Richard A. Elphick (History) Nominated for the Herskovits Award

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

Our very own Professor of History, Richard A. Elphick, has been nominated for the African Studies Association’s Melville J. Herskovits Award for his book, The Equality of Believers: Protestant Missionaries and the Racial Politics of South Africa (Charlottesville, and London: University of Virginia Press, 2012). The Award honors the most outstanding book published in African Studies in the previous year. The winner will be announced at the annual conference this weekend.

For more information: http://www.africanstudies.org/publications/asa-news/november-2013-56th-annual-meeting/276-2013-melville-j-herskovits-award-finalists

Campus Event: Africa in China

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

Colloquium – Su Zheng, Li Yinbei, Ma Chengcheng, Sun Yan

Exploring Music in China’s New African Diaspora—An Innovative U.S.-China Team Research Project

This Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Location: Freeman Center for East Asian Studies

Time: 4:15 p.m.

Since the 1990s, African traders and investors have made their way to China as a result of the rapid surge of China-Africa trade. There are now somewhere between 30,000 and 200,000 African migrants living in Guangzhou. Su Zheng led a research team of threegraduate students from Shanghai Conservatory to explore music in Guangzhou’s African communities. They will present their research on various African diasporic music scenes in Guangzhou and discuss the theoretical and methodological issues that arose in this innovative cross-cultural, cross-national team research process.

Su Zheng is associate professor of Music at Wesleyan University. LI Yinbei, MA Chengcheng, SUN Yan are graduate students in ethnomusicology from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, China.

Talk Today! Iyengar on Polarization

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

Today: Thursday, October 24, 2013

4:15 p.m.

Public Affairs Center 002

Sponsored by the Government Department

Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization

Professor Shanto Iyengar

Department of Political Science

Stanford University

wpid-MailAttachment-2013-10-24-11-21.jpeg

Professor Iyengar presents the results of three related studies

showing that Americans today are divided even more strongly by party than by race

 

Dr. Shanto Iyengar holds the Chandler Chair in Communication at Stanford University where he is also Professor of Political Science and Director of the Political Communication Laboratory. He is author or co-author of News That Matters (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Is Anyone Responsible? (University of Chicago Press, 1991), Explorations in Political Psychology (Duke University Press, 1995), Going Negative(Free Press, 1995), and Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide (Norton, 2011).

Event: ‘Leo Africanus’ Discovers Comedy: A Mediterranean Adventure

/ profmikenelson / Leave a comment

‘Leo Africanus’ Discovers Comedy: A Mediterranean Adventure
From Wesleyan’s Website:
Sep. 15, 2013 by Ann Tanasi
This talk stages a dialogue between two theatrical traditions at the end of the Middle Ages: the popular theater of the Arabic and Islamic world and the theater of Christian Europe. It does so through the adventures of Hasan al-Wazzan (“Leo Africanus”), a Moroccan traveler and diplomat, who was captured by Christian pirates in 1518 and spent several years in Italy as a seeming convert before returning to North Africa. The talk reflects on possible limits to cultural exchange and on the continuing vigor of alternate cultural traditions.
Natalie Zemon Davis has received honorary degrees from numerous universities in the United States and Europe. In 1987 she served as President of the American Historical Association.  In recognition of her path breaking historical work, in 2010 she was awarded the Holberg International Memorial Prize, and in 2012 she received the National Humanities Medal.

wpid-Davis-239x300-2013-10-11-15-55.jpgNATALIE ZEMON DAVIS

Henry Charles Lea Professor of History Emerita

Thursday, October 17 – 4:15 pm – Beckham Hall

SPONSORED BY THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT