Archive for September, 2008

New Dictionary of African Biography

By ACAS | 24 September 2008

Oxford University Press and Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research have announced an ambitious new project, the Dictionary of African Biography, that will include 5,000 entries both online and in print editions. The General Editors of the project are two Harvard faculty, Henry Louis Gates and Emmanuel Akyeampong.

Robert Mugabe’s Legacy

By Sean Jacobs | 18 September 2008

One of the legacies of that time – and a testament of the power of the nationalist narrative that African independence leaders embodied – is that few if any of Mugabe’s present Western critics publicly denounced these murders. Instead he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and honorary degrees from American universities. …read the rest

Mbembe on Obama and US-Africa Policy

By ACAS | 18 September 2008

Obama has said little about Africa since the start of the campaign. He might not endorse this cynicism, but nor has he indicated a willingness to significantly depart from the outdated view of the continent that has underpinned US policy since the end of the Cold War.

Mahmood Mamdani on “The New Humanitarian Order”

By ACAS | 18 September 2008

On July 14, after much advance publicity and fanfare, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied for an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, on charges that included genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Important questions of fact arise from the application as presented by the prosecutor. But even more important is the light this case sheds on the politics of the “new humanitarian order.”

Daphne Wysham: World Bank Takes the Money and Runs From Chad

By ACAS | 15 September 2008

Now that the World Bank has announced its withdrawal of support for the $4.2 billion Chad-Cameroon pipeline, I can’t help but remember the eyes of that boy. We were racing back from the Doba oil fields to the Chadian capitol city of N’Djamena in July 2006, traveling by van after dark. We were doing it against all of the advice of our colleagues, but we had a plane to catch early the next morning. There were three of us Americans, traveling with a Chadian activist. And we had spent a longer day than expected interviewing villagers and non-governmental organizations about the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, a high-risk, World Bank-financed oil pipeline project in the southern part of Chad, and its impact.

Time to end to U.S. HIV Travel Ban

By Africa Action | 5 September 2008

Africa Action is calling on US citizens to help end the unfair US travel ban on persons with HIV.

ACAS events at 2008 African Studies Annual Meeting

By ACAS | 2 September 2008

ACAS meets every year at the African Studies Association annual meeting. ACAS has four roundtables scheduled for the African Studies Association 2008 Annual Meeting with the theme “Knowledge of Africa: The Next Fifty Years” scheduled for November 13-16, 2008, in Chicago.