The International Studies Public Forum presents

"Fighting Words!: Protest and Popular Culture in Africa"
with Kris Peterson, UCI; Sophia Azeb USC; Victoria Bernal, UCI; Jean Tompihe, Chapman/UCI; Simangaliso Raymond Kumalo, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Thursday, December 6, 2012
5:00-6:20 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 1100

In the midst of African protest emerging since the “Arab Spring,” this roundtable will explore and analyze the interrelated roles of popular culture, new technologies, and emergent social movements that are shaping the future of the continent.  The phrase, “fighting words,” that frames this panel is adapted from Africa'’s first Nobel prize winner, Wole Soyinka, who once urged writers - and all verbal artists to “punch holes inside people” with words; to see “a book if necessary as a hand grenade which you detonate under a stagnant way of looking at the world”! Most of the scholarly literature on African artistic productions tends to focus on the role of art and politics in the colonial and immediate post-independent periods. Yet, there are now emergent and thriving popular cultural forms linked to issues such as popular democracy, people-centered development policies, globalization, national politics, and regional movements on peace and conflict resolution that are only recently capturing attention in academia. This roundtable proposes to showcase some of these new iterations and discuss their impact on current dialogues of national and continental self-determination.

This talk is part of "UCI and Africa: Expanding Engagements, Ongoing Dialogues," a two-day conference at UCI. 

For further information, please contact Sandy Cushman, scushman@uci.edu or 949-824-3344.