FW: CAS Upcoming Events & Art Exhibitions in January 2016

 

Events Reminder from the Centre of African Studies, University of London, January 2016 View this email in your browser Centre of African Studies Upcoming events   WORKSHOP ON "THEATRE for PEACE" with Ali Mahdi Nouri 10th January 2016 | Room G3 | College Building | SOAS University of London Ali Mahdi Nouri is the Director of the Al-Bugaa Theatre in Khartoum, the National Director of SOS Children, and the Director of the Centre for Theatre in Conflict Zones in Darfur. He has been awarded the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for his work with child soldiers and refugees in Sudan, and the UNESCO Arab Culture Prize for the promotion of dialogue between Arabic culture and cultures of the world. In 2012 he was officially designated a UNESCO Artist for Peace. In this practice-based workshop, Ali Mahdi Nouri will share his approach to the use of theatre as a tool for conflict resolution and for individual and social renewal. Maximum workshop capacity: 30 people Free, but booking is necessary Visit the CAS website for more information or contact cas@soas.ac.uk Telling the story their Way: The Arts & Social Action in the Sudans 11th January 2016 | 5.15 pm - 7pm | Room 4429 | College Building SOAS, University of London Culture in the Sudans has for some time been relegated to the scholarly margins, yet the expressive arts play an important role in inspiring reflection, challenging power, promoting identities and restoring individual and community morale. This panel will feature Ali Mahdi Nouri and John Martin, two prominent practitioners of theatre for social development, whose work with child soldiers and between victims and aggressors in Darfur and South Sudan respectively aims to facilitate social reintegration and to promote peace and reconciliation. Speakers: Ali Mahdi Nour (Albuggaa Theatre Sudan, Unesco Artist for Peace) John Martin (PanArts, London) Chair: Angela Impey (SOAS) Visit the CAS website for more information To register contact: cas@soas.ac.uk _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  Don't miss the last event of our Sudan/South Sudan Series: The use of law as an instrument of power in Sudan and South Sudan 11th January 2016 | 5.15 pm - 7pm | Room 4429 | SOAS, University of London This seminar examines the nature, underlying rationale and impact of the use of law in Sudan since 1989, including with reference to the role of the judiciary and other actors. Speaker: Ali Agab (Sudanese Human Rights Lawyer)-tbc- Discussant: Mashood Baderin (CAS/ SOAS) Chair: Lutz Oette (Centre for Human Rights Law, SOAS) MINERS SHOT DOWN:   The screening is followed by a Q&A session with James Nichol, defense lawyer for the victims' families. 11 January 2016 | 6 pm - 8 pm | Vernon Square | Room: V111 SOAS, University of London The Labour, Social Movements and Development cluster (department of Development Studies) and the Centre for African Studies are delighted to invite staff and students to the movie screening above.  In August 2012, mineworkers in one of South Africa's biggest platinum mines began a wildcat strike for better wages. Six days later the police used live ammunition to brutally suppress the strike, killing 34 and injuring many more. Using the point of view of the Marikana miners, Miners Shot Down follows the strike from day one, showing the courageous but isolated fight waged by a group of low-paid workers against the combined forces of the mining company Lonmin, the ANC government and their allies in the National Union of Mineworkers. What emerges is collusion at the top, spiralling violence and the country's first post-apartheid massacre. All welcome. There is no need to book, and seats are allocated on a first come first served basis. Visit the CAS website for more information Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa: Imagining the End of Whiteness 18 January 2016 | 5.15 pm - 7.00 pm | Room 4429 | College Building | Russell Square | SOAS, University of London In the last years of apartheid, white South African society found itself in the grip of previously unimaginable social and political change, which sometimes manifested in morbid cultural symptoms. Nicky Falkof discusses two of those symptoms, a pair of matched moral panics that appeared in the contemporary media and in popular literature. She argues that excessive reactions to the apparent threat posed by a cult of white Satanists, never proven to exist, and to a so-called epidemic of white family murder reveal important truths about fear, violence and resistance, as well as fragmentation within the poles of white South African identity: nationalism, gender, history, the family, even whiteness itself. Together, the Satanism scare and the family murder 'epidemic' draw a compelling picture of the psychic landscape of white culture at the end of apartheid, revealing both pathological responses to social change and the brutalising effects that apartheid had on those who benefited Speaker: Nicky Falkof (University of the Witwatersrand, SA) Chair: Dr Lindiwe Dovey (SOAS) Please RSVP to cas@soas.ac.uk   AFRIKULT - 'WORDS THAT TRAVEL' EVENT SERIES Saturday 23rd January 2016 |  Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT) and the Junior Common Room (JCR) |  SOAS University of London Afrikult. presents the first of the three-part series Words that Travel. Running throughout 2016, each event focuses on particular mediums and traditions of African literature with the first featuring African poetry. Words that Travel aims to showcase the wonderful and rich diversity within the African literary genre. A snapshot of what to look forward to: • Publishers' Market & African Food Court • Performances including Belinda Zhawi, Inua Ellams and OneNess Sankara • Screening of the first Ethiopian film entry at the Cannes Film Festival (2015): LAMB (directed by Yared Zeleke) Admission is free. The full programme will be published on the Afrikult. website (www.afrikult.com) in January. Afrikult. is also currently crowdfunding for the event series, please find the details here and help where you can! BUS RAPID TRANSIT IN DAR ES SALAAM: A "BETTER CITY FOR A BETTER TIME"? 25 Jan 2016 | 5.15 - 7pm | Room 4429 | College Building | Russell Square |  SOAS, University of London Transport in megacities like Dar es Salaam is always going to be a challenge - made worse when the cities are ports with only a few main roads out.  Since the late 1980s the majority of commuters in the city have travelled in overloaded daladalas, small buses owned by individuals or small companies and operated by informal workers. With funding from the World Bank, to the tune of over 290m USD, Dar es Salaam embarked on Bus Rapid Transit, a huge project to bring in state of the art bendy buses on exclusive lanes, and to relegate daladalas to the outskirts of the city. Bus Rapid Transit has implied a huge investment in transport infrastructure, including the widening of the city's main roads. Drawing on fieldwork, this seminar will explore the political and economic interests behind the Bus Rapid Transit project, and how a number of Tanzanian actors are to be affected, and in turn attempt to affect, the project. Chair: Andrew Coulston (Britain-Tanzania Society) Speaker: Matteo Rizzo (SOAS) This event is organised in collaboration with the Britain-Tanzania Society. For more information and to reserve a place please contact cas@soas.ac.uk.   SCREENING: The Supreme Price  26 Jan 2016 | 7-10 pm | Khalili Lecture Theatre | SOAS, University of London The supreme price Dir. Joanna Lipper, 75min, Nigeria/US 2014 In 1993 Nigeria elected M.K.O. Abiola as president in a historic democratic vote that promised to end years of military dictatorship. Shortly after the election, Abiola's victory was annulled.  General Sani Abacha seized power in a military coup and arrested M.K.O Abiola.  During her husband's incarceration, M.K.O Abiola's wife, Kudirat, took over the leadership of the pro-democracy movement, organizing strikes and marches and winning international attention for the Nigerian struggle. Because of this work, she too became a target and was assassinated.   Director Joanna Lipper elegantly explores past and present as she tells this deeply moving and intriguing story through the eyes of M.K.O and Kudirat Abiola's eldest daughter, Hafsat Abiola, who was about to graduate from Harvard when her mother was murdered. Her father died in prison two years later under mysterious circumstances. Determined not to let her parents' democratic ideals die with them, Hafsat returns to Nigeria after years in exile and is at the forefront of a progressive movement to empower women and dismantle the patriarchal structure of Nigerian society.   Screening will be followed by a Q&A with the Producer/Director Joanna Lipper. For more info please visit: www.joannalipper.com  Twitter: @joannalipper   Save the date!   Electrifying and Watering Northern Nigerian Cities in the Era of British Colonial Rule, 1923-1945 29th February 2016 | 5.15-7pm | Room 4429 | SOAS, University of London The current global debate on alternative energy sources, consumption and conservation has continued to generate intellectual and academic concern.  In Nigeria, due to erratic water and epileptic electricity supplies there are a slow pace of development as it affects urban economies and life generally. Electricity and water constitute the basic needs of life and are highly essential for a successful living as well as viable productivity. For instance, without water, life could hardly exist, and without electricity the mobility, creativity of life will be grossly undermined. Both electricity and water are crucial, not only for urbanization processes but for life itself. The fundamental underpinnings that touched on the cruciality of these two key urban amenities have to do with the fact that both electricity and water directly affect human life. This explains why the British embarked on programmes aimed at providing portable water and electricity supplies in northern Nigerian cities. During the colonial period, administrative headquarters, commercial centre's and railway terminus were all provided with either major electricity and water schemes or partial supplies. The study further revealed that electricity and water supply transformed the colonial urban space and created new social and economic order. Speaker: Dr. Philip Akpen, Department of History and Diplomatic Studies,  University of Abuja, Commonwealth Visiting Research Fellow, SOAS University of London Chair: Dr John Parker (SOAS) For more information and to RSVP contact cas@soas.ac.uk The Importance of Law as an Aid to Development in Africa 1st March 2016 | 7-9pm| Khalili Lecture Theatre | SOAS, University of London Can Law really play any significant role in Development generally and in Africa particularly? In this lecture Mashood Baderin and Andrew Thomas will be looking at both the optimist and skeptical views on the subject, bringing in case studies from different development projects undertaken in different parts of Africa. Speakers: Andrew Thomas (Hunton & Thomas LLP), Mashood Baderin (SOAS/CAS) Chair: Emilia Onyema (SOAS) For more information and to RSVP please contact cas@soas.ac.uk. This event is organised in collaboration with Hunton and Williams LLP.   Events Abroad   The 2016 IGLP African Regional Workshop 17th - 23rd January 2016| Cape Town | South Africa From January 17-23, 2016, The Institute of Global Law and Policy (IGLP) will hold the first African Regional Workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, co-hosted by the University of Cape Town Faculty of Law and convened in collaboration with Bowman Gilfillan. This Workshop is the second in a series of new regionally focused and concentrated academic programs being launched by IGLP. The 2016 IGLP African Regional Workshop in Cape Town will bring together doctoral scholars, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty from Africa and from around the world for thought provoking research collaboration and debate alongside IGLP junior and senior faculty from universities across the globe. SOAS is collaborating with the Institute and will be present with a delegation of three SOAS scholars who will be actively contributing to the workshop. For more information please visit the workshop's website: http://iglp.law.harvard.edu/the-regional-workshop-south-africa/   Art Exhibitions   'Sand In My Eyes: Sudanese Moments' 15th January-19th March 2016 | Brunei Gallery | SOAS, University of London FREE Admission The photographer and author Enikö Nagy has spent several years collecting everyday moments - in photography and spoken word - from over 45 tribes and ethnic groups across 30,000km of Sudan in some of the hardest-to-access regions of the world to produce the English-Arabic bilingual poetic picture book Sand in My Eyes: Sudanese Moments, that this exhibition is drawn from. Presenting very different images to those one might expect from Sudan this exhibition is taken from the over 26,000 photos, and 2,500 pieces of oral proverbs, legends, myths, poetry and songs Enikö has collected. Reclaiming the narrative about Sudan, the epic journey provides an intimate look into a people and the human experience   For more information visit: http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/sand-in-my-eyes/ or email gallery@soas.ac.uk   West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song A major exhibition at the British Library's – Ongoing - until the 16th of February 2016 'West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song' is an exhibition of literature and music – from the great African empires of the Middle Ages to the cultural dynamism of West Africa today  Fascinating stories from the region's 17 nations show how West Africans have harnessed the power of words to build societies, drive political movements, sustain religious belief and fight injustice. Beautiful manuscripts, historic film and sound recordings, books, photographs, and colourful textiles offer a unique insight into a profound and engaging literary culture with centuries-old written heritage existing alongside ancient oral traditions. For more information, and to book, please click here. Tickets £10. Concessions include a special group price of £5 per person for groups of 6 or more. Students £5.   Robel Temesgen: Adbar 7th January - 6th February 2016 | Tiwani Contemporary | London W1W 8BP Tiwani Contemporary now represents Robel Temesgen (b.1987, Ethiopia) and is pleased to announce his first UK solo exhibition. The exhibition comprises a series of new paintings and works on paper inspired by the longstanding Ethiopian belief of adbar and its associated rituals. In Amharic, the term 'adbar' refers to the embodiment of protective spirits within various elements of the natural landscape, such as lakes, mountains, rocks or trees. Trees possessing adbar, for instance, are strictly protected and believed to act as a link between people and the spirit world. They can serve as shelter, places of worship and meeting points around which to discuss community matters. Temesgen grew up in Dessie, north-east Ethiopia, where adbar was commonly practised.  For more info plese visit the Gallery's website: http://www.tiwani.co.uk/Home/Exhibitions   Nike Davies-Okundaye The Power of One Woman Featuring photographs by Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye 10 Dec 2015 - 6 Feb 2016 | GAFRA - Gallery of African Art The Gallery of African Art (GAFRA) is pleased to present The Power of One Woman, an exhibition of works by the internationally acclaimed Nigerian artist Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye. Featuring early pen and ink works, delicate watercolours, jewellery and Adire textiles, this exhibition will provide the audience with a rich body of work from a consistent and dedicated practice which spans over 40 years. This exhibition will also showcase never-before-seen photographs by Joanna Lipper, revealing new, groundbreaking dimensions of Nike's multi-faceted identity as a Yoruba Chief, daughter, mother, wife, artist, teacher, and social entrepreneur. For more info plese visit the Gallery's website: http://www.gafraart.com/exhibitions/23/overview/     Contact   Angelica Baschiera ab17@soas.ac.uk Manager Anna De Mutiis am131@soas.ac.uk Executive Officer     Facebook   Twitter

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