Webcasts related to the African Section
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November 3, 2008
An Evening with Chinua Achebe
Through his fiction and non-fiction works, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has sought to repair the damage done to the continent of Africa and its people as a result of European colonization. This is best exemplified in his most famous novel "Things Fall Apart," one of the first African novels written in English to achieve national acclaim. Set in the 1890s, the novel deals with the impact of British colonialism on the traditional Igbo society in Nigeria. Published in 1958 -- just two years before the end of a century of British rule in Nigeria -- the novel celebrated its 50th anniversary of publication in 2008. "An Evening with Chinua Achebe" featured the author reading from his celebrated work.
October 10, 2008
The African Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division and the Nigeria Peoples Forum-USA jointly hosted the Ninth Annual State of the Nigerian Nation Symposium -- Developing Nigeria's Power Sector: Strategies, Challenges and Impact.
Morning Session
Afternoon Session
February 4, 2008
Reflections from South Africa: Libraries and Society Change
Ellen R. Tise, president-elect (2007-2009) of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), gave an informative presentation on the transformation of libraries and the library profession in South Africa titled "Reflections from South Africa: Libraries and Societal Change." The lunchtime program opened up the Library of Congress' African American History Month celebration.
November 15, 2007
Somali Food Traditions at Thanksgiving
Barlin Ali, author of "Somali Cuisine," presented a lecture on "Somali Food Traditions at Thanksgiving" in a program sponsored by the Library's African and Middle Eastern Division and the Library of Congress Cooking Club.
July 24, 2007
Liberian-U.S.
Relations Symposium: Session I
Liberian-U.S.
Relations Symposium: Session II
In celebration of the 160th Independence Anniversary of the Republic of Liberia,
the African and Middle Eastern Division and the Embassy of Liberia co-sponsored
a symposium with the theme "Liberian-United States Relations: Past, Present and
Future." Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., made a special presentation. Other speakers
included His Excellency Charles A. Minor, Liberian Ambassador to the United States;
Wilton Gbakolo Sengbe Sankawulo, Sr., novelist and former Chairman of the Second
Liberian National Transition Government; former Sec. of Transportation Rodney
Slater; Ambassador Alice M. Dear, president of A.M. Dear and Associates; David
Smith, Jr., Georgia State University College of Law; and Angel D. Batiste, Library
of Congress. C. Patrick Burrowes, former ELTV Action News anchor and attorney
Kwame A. Clements, host and managing editor of "The African World," served as
moderators of the symposium.
February 26, 2007
Life Stories and Memory Making in South Africa
Nokuthula Mazibuko presents "Life Stories and Memory Making in South Africa" in a program sponsored by the African and Middle Eastern Division and the Embassy of South Africa. During her presentation, Mazibuko shows a segment from her documentary film, "The Spirit of No Surrender," which looks back on the 1976 youth uprisings in South Africa, focusing on the role that teachers played in firing the minds of students. She reads from her book, "Spring Offensive," a biography of two friends in Umkhonto We Sizwe, the MK Underground. Mazibuko stresses the importance of biographies and the continued need for narratives about the struggle for freedom and about the lives of ordinary South Africans.
November
7, 2006
Tour of Leopold Sedar Senghor Exhibit
in African and
Middle Eastern Division Reading Room
SPEAKER: Stephen Grant
The Library's African and Middle Eastern Division Reading Room presents
a special display of Senghor memorabilia featuring signed copies
of Leopold Senghor's prolific works from the private collection of
Stephen H. Grant, a retired administrator for the U.S. Agency for
International Development.
November 7, 2006
Leopold Sedar Senghor: Thinker, Statesman, Poet
Souleymane Bachir Diagne, professor of philosophy and
religion at Northwestern University, gave a lecture titled "Leopold
Sedar Senghor: Thinker, Statesman and Poet" in a program sponsored
by the African and Middle Eastern Division.
2006 was the centennial year of the birth of Senghor (1906-2001), who served
as Senegal's first president from 1960 to 1980. During his presidency, he set
Senegal on the path toward a multi-party democracy. Senghor is also regarded
as one of the greatest French-language poets of the 20th century. Fatou Fall,
a distant relative of Senghor, read one of his poems at the event.
Speaker Biography: Before joining the
faculty of Northwestern University, Souleymane Bachir Diagne taught
philosophy at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal, for more
than 20 years. An alumnus of Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, Diagne
obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy at the Sorbonne in 1988. His field
of research includes history of algebraic logic, history of philosophy,
Islamic philosophy and African philosophy. The author of many publications,
Diagne is currently working on a book about Senghor's philosophy.
September
7, 2005
A
Modern Queen in a Traditional Role
SPEAKER: Nnabagereka Sylvia Nagginda
H.R.H. Queen of Buganda Nnabagereka Sylvia Nagginda presented "A Modern
Queen in a Traditional Role" in a program sponsored by the African Section
of the African and Middle Eastern Division. Nagginda described her work as a
traditional ruler and the work of the charitable foundation she established,
the Nnabagereka Development Trust.
Examples of Reconciliation: Africa’s Contributions
to the Global Community
Overview
of Seminar Sessions and Cybercast
Monday, March 21, 2005
During the last century in Africa,
millions of non-combatants—women,
children, the elderly, the disabled, and the poor--were killed, displaced,
and/or forced to flee to neighboring countries as a result of conflict
and other manmade crises. According to the Institute for Development
Studies, during the last two decades of the last century, 28 sub-Saharan
African counties were engaged in violent conflict. For example, in
Rwanda, approximately 800,000 people died as a result of genocide in
1994; and an estimated 4.7 million died the nineties in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.
The seminar provided an opportunity for former President
Ketumile Masire of Botswana and former President Pierre Buyoya of Burundi,
religious
leaders from Africa and the United States, scholars, diplomats and
development experts to come together and share the lessons that they
have learned regarding indigenous reconciliation processes in Africa.
This seminar was co-sponsored by the African Section
of the African and Middle Eastern Division and the John W. Kluge Center
of
the Library
of Congress with
the cooperation of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa,
Boston University’s
African Presidential Archives and Research Center, Brown University’s
Watson Institute for International Studies, the Nigerian Peoples Forum,
and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Speakers: Alden Almquist, anthropologist, 2003-2004
Kluge Staff Fellow
Albert Lokasola, President, Vie Sauvage, Democratic Republic of the Congo
There is a growing movement toward engaging local people and their knowledge
in the cause of wildlife conservation. Dr. Almquist illustrates this trend with
a report on his work in information exchange and building community capacity
in Congo's Lac Tumba landscape during the summer months of 2004. Mr. Lokasola
speaks on his local Congolese wildlife NGO's work in bonobo conservation in the
nearby Maringa-Lopori-Wamba landscape; he also shares impressions from the first
UN Forest Forum conference on Forest Peoples and Indigenous Knowledge which he
attended from December 6-10, 2004 in San Jose, Costa Rica.
Sponsored by the African and Middle Eastern Division and the Science,
Technology and Business Division of the Library of Congress, Washington,
DC., December 13, 2004
Friday, February 6, 2004.
Hosted by the African and Middle Eastern Division, the Hispanic Division,
the John W. Kluge Center of the
The Library of Congress; Organized by the Center for Portuguese Studies
and Culture, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; Sponsored by te
Luso-American Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal, Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, NJ, and the Embassy of the Republic of Cape Verde. Details
of the Colloquium
Dr. Lilly Golden presented "Africans
in Russia: an Historical Perspective" on
Nov. 14, 2003. Dr. Golden, a Russian citizen, was born in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan,
in the former Soviet Union
to an African-American father and a Polish, Jewish-American mother.
Her father, who had studied in Tuskegee under Dr. George Washington
Carver, first visited the USSR in 1924, and then returned in 1934,
along with 16 other African-American agriculturalists to work on the
development of the cotton industry in Uzbekstan. In her presentation,
Dr. Golden discussed early Africans in Europe, and contemporary race
relations in Russia for people of African descent. This program was
sponsored by the African and Middle Eastern and European Divisions
of Area Studies, at the Library of Congress.
Cheikh Abdel Kader Haidara, Curator, Mamma Haidara Memorial Library
of Timbuktu in the Republic of Mali,
discusses the efforts to maintain the desert libraries of manuscripts
from as far back as the fourteenth century, an important cultural legacy
of the environs of the Sahara desert in West Africa. Cheikh Haidara is
considered to be one of the leading scholars and a librarian in the Timbuktu
region.
Dr. Hashim El-Tinay, Founder / President, Salam Sudan Foundation translates
from Arabic to English simultaneously the words of Cheikh Haidara.
Dr. Jorge Macedo, writer, journalist and ethno-musicologist,
contributes to the 27th anniversary celebration of the independence
of the Republic
of Angola with a lecture and music. Matias Sacotingo serves as
his interpreter. A speech by Her Excellency Josefina Pitra Diakité,
Ambassador from Angola opens the event. Sponsored by The Embassy
of Angola and the African Section, African and Middle Eastern Division
of the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. November 14, 2002
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