Episode 52: Zulu Intellectual History
April 27th, 2011
Hlonipha Mokoena (Anthropology, Columbia U.) on her new book: Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual (2011). Explains the rise of a black intelligentsia in 19th- and early 20th-century South Africa through the remarkable life of Fuze, the first Zulu-speaker to publish a book in the language: Abantu Abamnyama Lapa Bavela Ngakona / The Black People and Whence They Came.
Episode 51: Maasai Women, Culture, and the Indigenous Rights Movement
April 13th, 2011
Dorothy Hodgson (Anthropology, Rutgers) on Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania, with a focus on the experiences and perspectives of women. She discusses the intersections of gender, ethnicity, and Christianity, and then turns to the subject of her new book, Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous, which explores local activists’ engagement with the transnational indigenous rights movement.
Episode 50: Political Change in Africa and the Diaspora
March 30th, 2011
Horace Campbell (African American Studies and Political Science, Syracuse U.) on political change in Africa and the Diaspora. Focus is on the revolution in Libya, popular revolts, war, peace, and neo-liberalism in Africa and beyond. Campbell also shares insights from his new book: Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA.
Episode 49: The Revolutionary Situation in North Africa
February 25th, 2011
Salah Hassan and Ken Harrow (Michigan State University) on the democratic revolutions in North Africa. Events in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt are analyzed from below and above, with focus on the perspectives of youth, creative uses of technology, as well as the connections to, and relevance of, the events to Africa and the wider world.
Episode 48: Nigeria, Gender, Labor, and Environment
February 15th, 2011
Judith Byfield (History, Cornell) on the social and economic history of women and the environment in Nigeria. She elaborates on the role of the prominent Kuti family and also on the origins of her scholarly interest in Africa. The interview was recorded during Dr. Byfield’s visit to Michigan State University where she delivered the 2010 ASA Presidential Lecture.
Episode 47: Gender and Colonialism in Zimbabwe
January 23rd, 2011
Diana Jeater on Zimbabwe’s colonial history. Focus is on gender and on how culture and access to material resources shaped African lives, and on the role of African languages — and their translation by white settlers — in constructing discourses about morality. Jeater also discusses current work on private archives of Rhodesian expats in the UK, and oral histories of former members of the Rhodesian forces and the British South Africa Police.
Episode 46: Popular Politics in Southern Africa
November 30th, 2010
Historian Paul Landau (University of Maryland) on rethinking the broad history of Southern Africa from 1400 to 1948. His new book re-asserts African agency by seeing Africans in motion, coming out of their own past. Drawing on oral traditions, genealogies, 19th-century conversations, and other sources, Landau highlights the resilience of African political cultures and their adeptness at incorporating diverse peoples.
Episode 45: Terence Ranger and the Making of History in Africa
November 4th, 2010
Prof. Terence Ranger (Emeritus, University of Oxford) discusses his many contributions to African Studies and African History, how these themes have developed, and also his 17th book, Bulawayo Burning (2010). This is the first of three podcasts recorded at the ‘Making History: Terence Ranger and African Studies’ conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign October, 2010.
Episode 44: Oral History and Memory Work in Africa
September 17th, 2010Radikobo Ntsimane (UKZN School of Theology) on African voices in the history of mission hospitals in South Africa and the Sinomlando Center‘s ‘memory box’ program. Ntsimane’s work demonstrates how oral history is not just an intellectual practice, but also ‘a human encounter that can have a profound effect on people’s lives.’




