Group Community Service Project News

As I announced in class, I am excited about this semester's cache of group community service projects and the ways you have connected your work to the themes of the course. As part of the project assignment, you must invite the class to attend any performance or presentation you mount. If you are running a donation/collection of any kind, you must include the class in your donor pool. These measures are meant to promote inter-group communication as part of our class's learning community, as well as to provide a forum for each group to advertise its goals more widely.

Please reply to this post in order to share your group's announcements by the start of class on Friday, October 9th. In addition, any group may use this space to post project updates at any time.

Huh Hwe-tae Exhibit at Sawhill through Oct. 30

Through October 30, the Sawhill Gallery features the work of Huh Hwe-tae, a South Korean artist whose work expands the bounds of traditional calligraphy in creating an original art form, the name of which combines the terms “emotion” and “graphy”: Emography. Huh Hwe-tae the School of Art and Art History and College of Visual and Performing Arts Encore Artist for 2009-2010.

The artist will be in Duke Hall on Thursday, October 1 at 4:00 p.m. to demonstrate his expressive painting technique.

According to Kim Bok-Young, President of the Korean Society for Science of Art and Design, Huh’s work is a “masterpiece reaffirming his desire to attain the universe in a single brushstroke.”

Huh depicts forms of nature in his work. His brushstroke expresses the profound meaning and spirituality in clouds, willow trees, or an eagle aloft. Representing the beauty of movement, his work seeks to capture subtle references to soaring, galloping, shouting, and the wind.

Africana Studies Symposium Oct. 9th

JMU's first Annual Africana Studies Interdisciplinary Symposium is October 9, 2009. The keynote speaker is Professor Isidore Okpewho, State University of New York Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies, English, and Comparative Literature, Binghamton University. His address is entitled "The World of African Storytelling."

In lieu of a class meeting on Friday, you will attend one session of the symposium and post a short (one- to four-sentence) comment to this blog post that identifies who you are, the session you attended, and its connection to our course. Your post is due by the beginning of our class meeting time on Monday, October 12th.

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
Africana Studies Annual Interdisciplinary Symposium, 2009
“AFRICA AT THE CROSSROADS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?”
James Madison University, October 9th, 2009.
Godwin Hall, Room 344

8.40 A.M.
SYMPOSIUM OPENING AND WELCOME
Dr. David Owusu-Ansah, James Madison University

9.00 A.M. – 10.15 A.M.
ENVIRONMENT

Prof. S. Njuguna, Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya
Impact of MAU Deforestation on Rift Valley Lakes in Kenya

Caroline Gitau, Kenyatta University, Nairobi
Kenya Ecotourism Development in the Mt. Kenya Region

Dr. Jennifer Coffman, James Madison University.
The Political Ecology of Climate Change: Kenya, Drought, Governance, and Higher Education

Prof. R. M. Muasya, Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya
Kenyatta University Higher Education Internationalization Program for
Now and the Future


10.30 A.M. – 11.45 A.M.
JUSTICE / GOVERNANCE

Dr. Brillian Besi Muhonja, James Madison University
When Motherhood is not Enough

Dr. Tammy Castle, James Madison University
An Examination of Nigeria and Ghana’s Processing of Women in the Criminal Justice System

Dr. Patrick Dikirr, Institute of Global Cultural Studies / Binghamton University
Democratic Tyranny

Terry Beitzel, James Madison University
Justice and Peace? Questions for the ICC and Uganda, and the Future


12.00 P.M. – 1.30 P.M.
CULTURE /IDENTITY

Dr. Cheikh Thiam, Ohio State University
Memory, Truth, and Nationalism in Oral African Literature

Dr. Caroline Tushabe, University of California Riverside
Culture in Mind: Identity, Personhood & Agency in Nativist and Anti-Nativist Scholarship on Africa

Stephanie Mireku, James Madison University
The Lost Generation of Zimbabwe

Jemimah Mwakisha, Binghamton University
Social-cultural Values: Parenting at the Crossroads in Kenya

Michael P. Wolfe, James Madison University
Hip Hop, Youth, Non-Violent Protest and Revolution in Africa


1.30 P.M. – 2.30 P.M.
SPECIAL SESSION

Dr. Nikitah Imani, James Madison University
Echo, Narcissus, and the Waterless Fish

Godfrey Vincent, Morgan State University / James Madison University
The People's National Movement and the Independence Project, 1956-1965


2.45 P.M. – 3.45 P.M.
EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Dr. Barrel Gueye, East Stroudsburg University
Dr. Ibra Sene, Wooster College
A Critical Approach of the Community College Model in the Global Order: The College Universitaire Regional of Bambey (Senegal) as a Case Study

Justin Broughman, James Madison University
Building from the Ground Up: Educating Africa's Youth

Dr. Seifudin Adem, Institute of Global Cultural Studies
China in Africa

Dr. Senanu Asamoah, CNA Analysis and Solutions
The Role of Human Capital and Infrastructure Development in Mitigating Consequences from Natural Disaster Risk and Epidemics in Africa


4.00 P.M. – 5.00 P.M.
KEYNOTE SPEECH
Professor Isidore Okpewho, State University of New York Distinguished Professor
of Africana Studies, English, & Comparative Literature, Binghamton University.
The World of African Storytelling


FILM SESSIONS
11.00 A.M. – 12.00 P.M.
2.00 P.M. – 3.00 P.M.
Harrison Hall, Room 102
Kobina Aidoo’s “The Neo African Americans”

Faculty Book Launch and Guest Readings Nov. 6th

Please plan to attend the book launch of Shaping Memories by the English Department's Professor Joanne Gabbin on Friday, November 6, 2009, at 7:00 p.m. in the Highlands Room in the Festival.

Professor Gabbin will be there with twelve other outstanding writers, all of whom will read from the book, including:

Nikki Giovanni

Toi Derricotte

Trudier Harris

Daryl Dance

Toni Morrison Discusses and Reads "A Mercy"

Thanks to classmate Max Sedghi for pointing me toward this interview. National Public Radio's Lynn Neary interviewed Toni Morrison about A Mercy and its historical context last year. Morrison also read several selections from her novel.

The interview and series of readings, including the one we played in class, are here.

South African Runner Caster Semenya's Femininity Under Scrutiny

After her crushing win in the 800-meter world championships in Berlin a few weeks ago, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is conducting chromosomal tests on South African runner Caster Semenya to determine whether she is biologically female and therefore technically the race's winner.

President of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene, resigned from his seat on the IAAF board to protest the organization's treatment of Semenya. "We are not going to allow Europeans to describe and define our children," he said.

Female athletes in patriarchal societies have long struggled against heterosexist social pressures to be either feminine or athletic, as if femininity and athleticism are mutually exclusive. Female athletes often attempt to look pretty and display athletic prowess.

If they fail to perform this obescience, they are labeled "lesbian" or, in Semenya's case, not a woman.

Semenya's story provides one example of the ways in which heterosexism is linked with racism. The initial story is here.

How does this story connect with our class discussions on how gender is (and has been) differently understood in different communities and across different historical periods?

South Asian Film Series Fall 2009

The JMU Department of Justice Studies film series is underway! The series showcases 11 South Asian films on the region's contemporary social, political, and cultural issues. Each screening will feature JMU faculty and other regional experts to introduce and discuss the films.

All films are free and open to the public.

Films are screened on Wednesdays starting at 7:00 pm in Burruss Auditorium G44. The full schedule and details are here. Direct questions to jacobsx@jmu.edu.