Faculty and Student Publications, Presentations and Honors Fall 2013/Spring 2014 | Center for African Studies

Richard Akresh, Economics, was promoted to Associate Professor and was appointed a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is leading a Global Studies 298 Study Abroad program in Burkina Faso in 2014. He also made a number of presentations last term:

"Child Labor, Schooling, and Child Ability" at Oklahoma State University and
"Cash Transfers and Child Schooling: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation of the Role of Conditionality" at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
In addition, he presented at the University of Colorado and the Inter-American Development Bank.

Teresa Barnes, Departments of History and Gender and Women’s Studies, is now the co-chair of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars.
She published “Pregnancy and Knowledge in a South African University,” (African Studies Review) and gave various conference presentations, seminars, and talks:

"Exporting Apartheid: A South African Intellectual's Incursions into Pan-African politics, 1960-66," at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Baltimore, MD;
“Pregnancy and knowledge in a South African university,” seminar presentation, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone;
"Complicity in South African higher education," Education Faculty, University of the Western Cape, July 2013;
“‘The best defense is to attack’: AH Murray and the South West Africa Case at the International Court of Justice, 1960-66,” South African Historical Society biennial meeting, Gaborone, Botswana; and
“The curious case of A.H. Murray in South African political trials, 1956-76,” presented to conference ‘Rivonia Trial 50 Years On’, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.

Thomas Bassett, Professor, Geography & Geographic InfoSci

B. Beymer-Farris and T. Bassett. 2013. Environmental narratives and politics in Tanzania’s Rufiji Delta: A reply to Burgess, et al. Global Environmental Change 23(5): 1355-1358.
T. Bassett and C. Fogelman. 2013. Déjà vu or something new? The adaptation concept in the climate change literature. Geoforum 48 (2013) 42–53.

Merle Bowen, Center for African Studies and Political Science had several major presentations in the fall term:

“Agrarian Labor Relations: Diversification of Rural Work On and Off-farms in Brazil,” African Institute for Agrarian Studies, Harare, Zimbabwe.
“Brazil’s Quilombo Circuit: Cultivating Tourism in African Descent Communities,” Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora,” Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
“Interrogating the Study of the African Diaspora: the Afro-Brazilian Angle,” African American and African Studies Speaker Series, Michigan State University.

Stephen Bradlow, Mathematics Department, is in Cape Town, South Africa, for Spring 2014 as a Fulbright Specialist to teach a course on planar curves at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS). With a mission to build capacity for African initiatives in education, scientific research and technology, AIMS draws students from all over Africa to its masters-level program in mathematical sciences.

Jan Brooks, Human and Community Development, was selected for the College of ACES Academy for Global Engagement and went to Ghana at spring break 2013 with faculty from each of the departments in the college. The group built connections with similar colleges at University of Ghana at Legon in Accra, and University for Development Studies at Tamale. Highlights of the trip were touring a shea butter processing plant empowering women, and a weekend visit to Africa Atlantic Farms in the Eastern Region, owned in part by Illinois ACE alumni Kristopher Klokkenga. (Africa Atlantic Farms now offers internships for university students to do farm research or community work in the nearby villages.)

She also completed a study abroad/service learning trip which was inclusive of three undergraduate students with disabilities. The service learning sites included Baphumelele Orphanage and Respite Center in Khayelitsha, Care Haven Shelter for Abused Women and Eros School for children with cerebral palsy and attention disorders, both in Athlone township, as well as Thembalethu School for children with disabilities in Gugulethu.ACES online news ran an article about the inclusive trip. Here is the link: http://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/i-can-take-wheelchair-mountain-inclusive-south-africa-study-abroad-trip-changes-lives

Ken Cuno, History, published “Marriage: Historical Practice,” in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women (2013), and presented “From Pluralism to Hanafism and Back: How Legal Modernization Set Back Women’s Rights in Nineteenth-Century Egypt” at the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in New Orleans. He was also interviewed about the Syrian civil war and lectured on the Arab Spring uprisings.

Christopher Fennell, Anthropology, is continuing in his role as the founder and editor of the Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage. His publications this past year included:

“Introductory Statement” from the Editor, Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage,
“Kongo and the Archaeology of Early African America,” invited chapter in Kongo Across the Waters, edited by Susan Cooksey, Robin Poynor, and Hein Vanhee,
“Cultural Creativity, Rebellions, and Comparative Questions for Afro-Brazilian Archaeology,” chapter for Archaeology of Slavery and African Life in Latin America, edited by Pedro Paulo A. Funari, Charles E. Orser, Jr., and Aline Vieira de Carvalho, Springer Press (forthcoming), and
A peer reviewed publication of University of Florida Press, to accompany an exhibition by the Harn Museum of Art and Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium (2013).

Barbara J. Ford, Mortenson Library, was in Zimbabwe on a U.S. State Department speaker program from September 28-October 5. She spoke about current trends in libraries to groups in Harare, Gweru and Bulawayo and talked about the pros and cons of electronic books and information resources at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

Alma Gottlieb, Anthropology, posted a controversial article to the Huffington Post: “Crib, Lap or Back? What Sleeping (and Awake) Babies Tell Us About How Culture Matters.” In addition she gave more than two dozen talks and papers over the past year. The highlights of these were the following:

"Beng Births, Beng Funerals" (with Philip Graham), guest lecture presented at Bucknell University
"Talk about Braided Worlds,Anthropology, Writing, and Experiencing Another Culture over the Long Term" (with Philip Graham), guest lecture presented at Bucknell University
Reading (with Philip Graham) from Braided Worlds, Common Good Books (bookstore owned by Garrison Keillor), St. Paul, MN
Reading, talk,and book signing(with Philip Graham) fromBraided Worlds, Carleton College
Guest lecture on contemporary readings of The Nuer, Carleton College
“African Immigrants in Europe,” talk presented to workshop for high school teachers, “The Timeless Mediterranean and the New European Union: Transnational Spaces and Integration,” as Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Princeton University, Fall 2013."Timing and Telling," talk presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Chicago)

"Cape Verdeans with Jewish Heritage," talk presented at the Village Temple (New York City)

“Untold Stories: The Jews of the Cape Verde Islands,” invited talk presented to theWest Village Temple (New York, NY)
“Timing and Telling,” talk presented at the 112th Annual Meeting, American Anthropological Association
“Braided Worlds: Reading and Talk” (with Philip Graham), as keynote speakers of the annual Convocation of the Campus Honors Program, U of I
“Immigration Issues from Below: Africans in Europe,” talk co-sponsored by the European Union Studies Center and the Center for African Studies, U of I
“Véronique: A Catholic Animist,” talk at workshop on “Women in World Religious Traditions,” Center for Religious Life.

James Kilgore, Center for African Studies and Global Studies Program, won the Daniel Singer Foundation Millennium Essay competition for his piece, “On Returning to Where the Heart Is,” which described his return to South Africa after nine and a half years away.

Diana Grigsby-Toussaint, Kinesiology and Community Health, published “Spatial Distribution of Underweight, Overweight and Obesity among Women and Children: Results from the 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey,” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. She co-authored with K.N. Turi and M.J. Cristoph.

The University of Illinois once again hosted the Summer Institute for Languages of the Muslim World in 2013. The program was an unprecedented success with 83 students enrolling in courses in six different languages: Arabic, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Urdu, and Wolof. A large number of faculty from the U of I as well as our own grad TAs led the institute.

Students:

Sophia Balakian (fourth-year student in Anthropology doctoral program) received funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research for her doctoral research with Somali asylum-seekers in Kenya.The funding will support an additional six months of fieldwork in both Nairobi and the U.S. (building on the year of support she currently has from the Social Science Research Council--International Doctoral Research Funding).

Mary Christoph, an MPH/PhD student in Community Health and an Illinois Transdisciplinary Obesity Prevention Program (I-TOPP) Fellow, travelled to Uganda in November 2013 to investigate the association between lifestyle behaviors, inflammation, and weight status among school children. She worked with schools in Kampala (the capital) and Mukono (East central Uganda) to recruit 151 adolescents to complete surveys on dietary consumption and physical activity. In addition, she collected saliva samples to measure C-reactive protein, which serves as a marker of inflammation within the body. This project is based on an ongoing collaboration between faculty and researchers at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Makerere University in Uganda. Ms. Christoph is advised by CAS member Dr. Diana Grigsby-Toussaint, also with the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health, and the Division of Nutritional Sciences.

Charles Fogelman, Geography, Ph.D. candidate, won a series of fellowships: Marion G. Russell Graduate Fellowship, University of Illinois Department of Geography & GIS; Rita & Arnold Goodman Fellowship; University of Illinois Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program; Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award, National Science Foundation, Summer Research Grant, University of Illinois Department of Geography & GIS ; Dissertation Travel Grant, University of Illinois Graduate College, 2013; the Barbara A. Yates International Research Award; University of Illinois Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, 2013-14; and the Kathleen Cloud International Research Award, University of Illinois Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program.

Letitia Onyango was hired as Research Project Coordinator at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine to explore ways to diversify faculty and research in the biosciences. She is intending to enroll for a Ph.D. and focus her research on empowering women in development in Africa.

Brenda Nyandiko Sanya, Ph.D. candidate in the College of Education, had her essay, “Disrupting patriarchy: An examination of the role of e-technologies in rural Kenya,” published in Feminist Africa.