News and Events

Looking for a great space for artistic vulnerability and expression?
Build up your confidence as a writer and a great historian for your own life and experiences and develop your storytelling voice!

No prior creative writing experience needed or required.

Dates: Tuesdays: Jan. 17th, 24th, 31st, and Feb. 7th.

Time: 6pm to 8pm

Organized by Dr. Comfort Azubuko-Udah

Register Here

The African Studies Seminar Series Presents:

Beyond decolonization and the critical: a case for precolonial history and the intricacies of violence and genocides in Africa

Presented by Felix Amoh-Siaw, doctoral candidate, Interdisciplinary Global Studies at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus—UBCO) & 2022 Trudeau Foundation Scholar  

Until the Cows Come Home: Patchwork Land Reform in South Africa’s  Ranching Sector 

Presented by Alex Dyzenhaus, Ph.D., SSHRC postdoctoral researcher in the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto 

WHEN: Thursday, December 8, 2022, 2-4PM 

WHERE: 2053 Seminar Room, 20 Wilson Hall, New College

Organized by the African Studies Program at New College, University of Toronto 

Contact: Prof. Marieme Lo, Director, African Studies Program | Email: Marieme.lo@utoronto.ca     

 All Welcome! Refreshments!

Join us for the African Studies end of year party !

WHEN: THURSDAY, December 8, 2022, 6pm-9pm

WHERE: William Doo Auditorium

45 Willcocks St. (Lower Level)

Join us for delicious African food, ASCU Elimi’s Volume 3 Lauch,  Drumming, Music & more.

Family and friends are all welcome!

Event Details

By Merve Fejzula
Assistant Professor, University of Missouri

When: November 23, 2022 | 3 – 4:30 PM
Where: Room UC152, University College, University of Toronto

Event Details

Please note that this event has been postponed. New date TBA.

Talk By Professor Divine Fuh, Director of the Institute for Humanities at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
When: Friday, November 18, 2022 | From 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Where: William Doo Auditorium, Room A

Talk Description

There is an underlying assumption today that Southern scholarship, especially when associated with Africa, is essentially decolonial – an idea that increasingly appears for many as intellectually bullying and associated with cancel culture. Yet, as an intellectual movement, decoloniality poses a knowledge production challenge for many scholars, particularly regarding how to translate critique into practice. Through an autoethnographic narrative account of my training and development as an anthropologist, this paper ironically asks how native scholars should respond to decoloniality. I focus on the simultaneous processes of becoming and unbecoming, and their relationship to self, insights, and the production of particularly scientific subjectivities. I am especially interested in the being and making of African anthropologists, particularly within a space in which one must unmake oneself in order legitimately to become. In the midst of decolonization, decolonial and African feminist intellectual subjectivation debates, what are the possible implications for the future of anthropological work, science and related scholarship production as natives become ethnographers? What opportunities does decoloniality offer for expanding and enriching existing anthropological archives?

Co-sponsors:   The  African Studies  Program  and  Anthropology Department

Event Details

Talk by Professor Siba Grovogui (Cornell University)
When: November 17 | 12:30 pm
Where: Canadiana Gallery (14 Queen’s Park Crescent West), CG 265 (2^nd floor)

Register Here

Talk Description

There is either failure or omission in the social sciences and humanities to entertain the idea that African political actions have behind them distinct traditions of thought. This is to say that it is often assumed in the canons and beyond that African actions are not grounded in moral predicates that reflect time and the material conditions of the existence of the authors of such actions. One way to cast aside African thought, as well as their ethical and moral predicates, is to present them as legends: the result of exceptional heroic acts of bravery, foresight, and/or humanity. To counter the underlying reflex, I wish to revisit the last paragraph of Nelson Mandela’s “I’m Prepared to Die’ speech. I do so to demonstrate the manners in which the last paragraph stands as an instance and instantiation of a longstanding and uniquely African expression of humanism. Further, I wish to show how the absence of interest and acquaintance with this particular speech is also evidence of the poverty of moral and ethical thought today.

About Professor Siba Grovogui

Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui is Professor of International Relations Theory and African Political Thought at Cornell University in the United States of America. He is also the Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University for 2020 and 2021. He is the author of Sovereigns, Quasi Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-Determination in International Law (1996) and Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions (2006). He is currently in the final phase of completion of a manuscript titled The Gaze of Copernicus: Postcolonialism, Serendipity, and the Making of the World. The manuscript offers a critique of international relations, its practices, disciplinary canons, archives, and regimes of truth as foundations for a set of propositions on postcolonial inquiries, methods, and utopias.

This event is co-sponsored by the Centre for Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, the Transnational Justice Project, and the African Studies program at the University of Toronto. 

A light lunch will be served at 12:00pm in the Centre Lounge, 2nd floor of the Canadiana Gallery. 

Please note that the location does not have a working elevator. If you are a person with a disability and require accommodation, please contact us at crimsl.communications@utoronto.ca and we will do our best to make appropriate arrangements.

September 17-22, 2022

African Studies is co-sponsoring  FINTECH Masterclasses which will all happen on the 17^th Sept from 10am-1pm ET: These are great opportunities for networking and career exploration.

• Understanding the Canadian Fintech Landscape
  Taught by Nina-Mae, Head of Partnerships at Fintech Cadence
• VC Fund investing in African Tech
  Taught by Hany Assaad of Co-Founder and Chief Portfolio & Risk Officer at Avanz Capital, former Chief Investment Officer at the IFC for Emerging Markets
• Financial Literacy for Youth and Newcomers
  Taught by Andre Lewis, VP Treasury of DUCA Credit Union and Leighton Watson, Regional Sales Manager at Pineapple