"Racing the Family Narrative: Black German Family Photography and the Stories Pictures (Won't) Tell…"                                                                                                                                                   Tina Campt
Professor, Barnard College/Columbia University 

Date: Thursday, March 28, 2013
Location: Althouse 106
Time: 5:00 p.m. 

The German and Africana Studies Departments are hosting Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Africana Studies Program Tina Campt of Barnard College/Columbia University next Thursday. Professor Campt will be giving a lecture titled "Racing the Family Narrative: Black German Family Photography and the Stories Pictures (Won't) Tell…" on Thursday, March 28 at 5 pm in Althouse 106. Professor Campt's visit is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Office of Diversity Initiatives, the Women's Center, American Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Joyce Bylander, Special Assistant to the President for Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, and the Max Kade Foundation.

"Racing the Family Narrative: Black German Family Photography and the Stories Pictures (Won't) Tell…"                                                                                                                                              What historical 'truths' can we read in the visual archive of the African Diaspora in Germany? What narratives of nation, place and belonging do family photographs tell? What narratives do they challenge, dislodge or retell? This presentation uses family photography of Black Germans in the early twentieth century to tell an alternate narrative of race, nation and diaspora for the Black German community. In the process, it asks what we can learn by engaging the multiple truths of still images, and images of dwelling in diaspora.

Biography
Dr. Tina Campt is Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Barnard College. Campt's research theorizes gendered, racial and diasporic formation in black communities in Germany, and Europe more broadly. She is the author of Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender and Memory in the Third Reich (2004), an oral history of Black Germans in the Nazi period that examines the mutual constitution of racial and gendered formation from the Weimar Republic to the postwar period. She has edited special issues of Feminist Review, Callaloo and small axe, and together with Paul Gilroy, co-edited the volume, Der Black Atlantik (2004). Her second book monograph explores early twentieth century family photography of Black European communities. Image Matters: Archive, Photography and the African Diaspora in Europe (2012) examines the status of photographs in the process of historical interpretation. Engaging the burgeoning field of scholarship on affect, Image Matters uses affect to attend to how certain photographs move people, what the practice of making photos did for black sitters as individuals and family members, and what it allowed them to do and say about themselves. The book demonstrates how and why certain photographs ‘matter’, why they ‘register’ at multiple levels, as well as what those registers tell us about the cultural work of vernacular photography for diasporic communities. Professor Campt is the recipient of research grants and fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust, the American Association of University Women, The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Social Science Research Council, and the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities.

Relevant Links:

https://barnard.edu/headlines/image-matters-archive-photography-and-african-diaspora-europe

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/radical_history_review/v083/83.1campt.html

Fallou Ngom
Associate Professor, Boston University

Date: Thursday, March 21, 2013
Location:Stern Center, Great Room
Time: 7:00 p.m.

This talk will address the myth of illiteracy in Islamized areas of Africa. It uncovers important sources of African knowledge written in the modified classical Arabic script known as Ajami.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by Middle East Studies and the Departments of Africana Studies, History, and French and Italian.

Biography (provided by the speaker)
Dr. Fallou Ngom is an associate professor of anthropology and director of the African Language Program at the African Studies Center at BostonUniversity. His research interests include the interactions between African languages and non-African languages, the Africanization of Islam in the Sahel, and Ajami literatures, records of West African languages written in Arabic script.

Relevant Links:

http://www.theworld.org/2010/09/africa-ajami-writing/

http://www.bu.edu/bostonia/summer09/ajami/

Peter Bechtel ’81, director, Andorinha Azul Ambiental, a company specializing in sustainable development
Ruth Mkhwanazi-Bechtel, program director, Vanderbilt University’s Friends in Global Health in Mozambique

Sustainable Development in Mozambique

Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Stern Center, Great Room, 7:00 p.m.

For many years, Mozambique has been near the bottom of the UN Human Development Index, but recent discoveries of gas, coal, and mineral deposits have created opportunities for rapid economic development.  While the government places some importance on sustainability, there are ongoing problems related to transparency, top-down decision-making, urbanization and climate change.

The event is sponsored by The Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainability Education, Career Center, Department of Religion, Office of Institutional and Diversity Initiatives, Department of International Business and Management, Health Studies, Department of Environmental Studies, Community Studies Center and the Departments of Africana Studies, International Studies, Earth Sciences and Economics.

This event is also part of  The Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series and the faculty seminar series titled, Living in a World of Limits.

Biographies

Peter Bechtel ’81, a graduate of Dickinson College, traveled to Africa with the US Peace Corps. He met his wife, bought a farm, and eventually acquired Mozambican nationality. He has worked in the development field for more than 30 years in Southern Africa, in rural development, nature conservation, and climate change.  He has seen the  devastating effects of climate change on coastal communities in East Africa and is concerned about developing resistance and resilience mechanisms not only for ecosystems but for livelihoods as well.

Peter Bechtel is an award winning ecotourism operator and has achieved the following:

1. Founder of three large national Parks/ Reserves.  The Quirimbas National Park, the Lake Niassa/Nyasa/Malawi Reserve, and the Primeiras and Segundas Archipelago Marine Reserve.  He organized the declaration of protected area status, wrote the management plans, and organized ranger teams and protection for both natural biota as well as traditional human livelihoods in all three of these areas.

2.  Founder of the CARE/WWF Alliance, a formal worldwide alliance between two developmental giants to work at the resource health/human well-being nexus.

3.  Launched a process that led to the establishment of the national BIOFUND to finance Mozambique’s Conservation areas.

4.  Won “World’s Best Destination” from the BBC in 2006 for our eco- lodge Quilalea Marine Sanctuary, together with two partners.

5.  Developed climate buffering strategies for marine and terrestrial areas, as well as community livelihoods.

Ruth Mkhwanazi-Bechtel is the program director of the Community Care and Support Program, a program of Vanderbilt University’s Friends in Global Health in Mozambique. As program director, Ruth oversees development and implementation of community outreach efforts to overcome sociological barriers and increase community members’ access to health services for HIV & AIDS prevention and care. She has more than 20 years experience working in Mozambique and Swaziland on health care and health education, community development, community management of natural resources, food and livelihoods security, and women’s entrepreneurship. She received a master’s of science degree in Managing Rural Care form the University of London, Imperial College in 2005.

Along with guest speaker Corinthia Jacobs '11 and in celebration of Black History at Dickinson College, the Africana Studies Department will be honoring entrepreneur and activist Noah Pinkney on Friday, February 22, 2013 from 4:00-6:30pm at West Gate (Plaque ceremony) followed by a reception in the Ground Floor Lounge of Althouse. (Rain Location for Ceremony: Althouse 106).

*Noah Pinkney (1846-1923)

Noah Pinkney was born a slave in Frederick County, Maryland on December 31, 1846. He bravely fought in the Civil War after enlisting in the Union Army in Harrisburg, PA 1863. After the war, he moved to Carlisle, where he became known as “Pink” or “Uncle Noah.” In 1882, he helped to found a Freemasonry Lodge, which worked to organize Black citizens of Carlisle. As an entrepreneur, he sold food to Dickinson students. He sold these treats outside the gate near East College, as he was forbidden access to the campus in 1894. On the coldest of nights, he sorted to sell his treats from his home at 137 N. West St. Noah Pinkney exemplifies the resiliency and perseverance of ex-slaves who overcame adversity and continued to give back to their community.*