SPRING 2007

CLICK HERE FOR PDF VERSION OF SPRING 2007 CALENDAR

Join New York University’s Africa House for events that look at political, economic, social and cultural aspects of Africa and its relationship with the world.

The following events are free and open to the public. People who are not members of the NYU community are encouraged to attend, but are reminded that some form of photo ID will be required to gain entrance to most NYU buildings.

Every semester a number of events are organized after the calendar has gone to press. We encourage anyone interested in learning more about these events or new developments at Africa House to subscribe to our email list by emailing africa.house@nyu.edu.

Ghana’s Minister of Tourism and Diasporic Relations
January 22
SPEAKER:     Hon Jacob Okanka Obetsebi-Lamptey
TOPIC:            Africa and the Diaspora
LOCATION:   Kimmel 905-907
TIME:              11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Recently on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" to talk about Ghanaian food, Minister Obetsebi-Lamptey is responsible for Ghana's efforts to outreach to people around the world.

AFRICA DIASPORA HISTORY FORUM
January 30
SPEAKER:     Marc Goulding, NYU
TOPIC:          Sedition: Gold coast, 1936
LOCATION:     King Juan Carlos center,
                        Room 324 (floor 3e)
Goulding reads from his dissertation, “Vanguards of the New Africa: Black Radical Networks, Communism, and Anti-Imperialism in the 1930s.”

The Second Annual Conference on the Health of the African Diaspora: The Health of Men
February 10
LOCATION:   Farkas Auditorium; New York University Medical Center
TIME:              9:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Africa House is pleased to work with NYU School of Medicine on the 2nd Annual conference on the health of the African Diaspora.

Speakers: David Malebranche, Emory University School of Medicine;Yaw Nyarko, New York University; Fritz Francois, NYU SoM; Frank Hamilton, NIDDK, NIH; Arthur Burnett II, Johns Hopkins; Walter Gilliam, Yale University Child Study Center; Rosa Smith, Schott Foundation for Public Education; Robert Fullilove, Mailman School of Public Health; Rodney Fuller, Medgar Evers College, CUNY; Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Harvard University; Antoine Clark, F.E.D.S Magazine; Joseph Marshall, Omega Boys Club/ Street Soldiers

Africa Diaspora History Forum
February 14
SPEAKER:      Sujatha Fernandes, Sociology Department, Queens College
TOPIC:            Cuba Represent!: Rap Music, State Power, and Racial Politics in Contemporary Cuba
LOCATION:   King Juan Carlos Center, Room 324
TIME:              7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

NYU in Ghana Students Documentary Screening
February 20
LOCATION:   Wasserman Center, Presentation Room B
TIME:              7:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Student documentaries from Fall's 2006 "Documenting the African City" class. NYU in Ghana Associate Director Christa Sanders will be there to answer questions about the program.

A Reception for Tanzania’s Minister of Tourism
February 22
SPEAKER:     Honorable Jumanne A. Maghembe
LOCATION:   Kimmel Center, Rosenthal Pavilion, 10th Floor
TIME:              6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Sponsored by the Tanzanian Tourist Board.
Please RSVP by February 16, 2007 by calling 212-447-1357 or email: nathalie@africatravelassociation.org

AFRICA HOUSE ART EVENT
February 27
SPEAKER:     Senam Okudzeto
LOCATION:    Einstein Auditorium
                      Barney Building 34 stuyvesant st.
                       (between 2nd and 3rd Aves, just north of 9th st.)
TIME:               7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Senam Okudzeto was born in the United States, raised in Ghana and Nigeria, studied in the United Kingdom and divides her time between london, Basel and Accra. She describes her work as “random elements drawn together to rewrite the globe; identity, identification, language, the map, absurdity and itinerancy.

Africa Diaspora History Forum
March 5th
SPEAKER:      Irma Watkins-Owens, History Dept, Fordham
TOPIC:            TBD
LOCATION:   King Juan Carlos Center, Room 324
TIME:              6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

March 6
CANCELLED TOPIC:          Getting To The Bottom Of Corruption: 
An African Case Study In Community Driven Development
LOCATION:   19 West 4th Street, Room 736
TIME:              6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
GUEST:          Jean Ensminger, Caltech

Community driven development (CDD) has become an increasingly common model of project delivery the world over. Put simply, CDD represents an empowerment of communities at the bottom of the development food chain. Communities are responsible for choosing projects, selecting leaders, and implementing and fiscally managing their projects in a decentralized manner. Not only has the strategy been widely employed by the World Bank, but it has also been adopted by bilateral donors, NGOs, and developing countries themselves. Yet despite the enormous proliferation of this model of project delivery, little data exist to evaluate its effectiveness.
This study reports on a case study from a rural African community where we have access to unusual detail regarding the individual-level demographics of participants in one CDD project. We are able to “follow the money” throughout the community and learn what socio-demographic variables are correlated with leadership in the project and level of economic benefit from the project. A social network analysis collected just prior to the project gives us other insights into some of the dynamics afoot. The data from this project point to losses on a scale sufficient to render virtually any project dysfunctional. Furthermore, the losses documented here­-on the order of seventy percent­-are not atypical of other CDD projects in the area. This study attempts to provide insights to answer the question, “What when wrong?”

Ethiopia's Minister of Tourism
March 13
LOCATION:  King Juan Carlos II of Spain Center, Atrium>br?53 Washington Square Park South
TIME:              6:00-8:30
Refreshments will be served.
RSVP: with your full name, name of guests, and travel affiliation via e-mail to nathalie@africatravelassociation.org or telephone at 1.212.447.1357.

Africana Social Sciences Seminar - Book Reading
March 21
SPEAKER:     Todd Moss, CGD
TITLE:            African Development: Making Sense of the Issues and Actors
LOCATION:  19 West 4th St., Room 736
TIME:              6:30-8:00
Refreshments will be served beforehand.
"This compulsively readable and accessible book is a masterpiece of clear thinking, comprehensiveness, balance, insight, and humor. It will meet the needs of all those who want to know more about Africa's mixture of disappointment and promise."—William Easterly, New York University

Conversations on Economics Development in Ghana
March 28
LOCATION:   Accra, Ghana
TIME:           Noon to 6 p.m.
Co-Directors of the Development Research Institute Profs William Easterly and Yaw Nyarko organize a dialogue among leading financial, business and economics experts of Ghana and Africa to look at Ghana’s economy and economic development.

Africa House and frontiere afrique film
March 29
TITLE:                Homeland
LOCATION:        Screening room,
                         King Juan Carlos Center,
                         53 Washington Square South
TIME:                 6:30 p.m.
by Jacqueline Kalimunda
-winner of the documentary Grand Prix, Vues d’Afrique Festival, Montreal 2006

The first Rwandan film about Rwanda. An original and optimistic representation of people enacting a newly conceived idea of nationhood. Kalimunda is able to speak to Rwandans in their language, on their terms, offering the type of perspective and ideas never before seen in any other film about Rwanda. through personal stories, the characters in HOMElANd reveal their country, their lives and their future.

Cinema Studies Lecture
March 30
TITLE:                Redeeming the Gangster: Boy Called Twist (2004) and Tsotsi (2005)
SPEAKER:          Lesley Marx
LOCATION:        721 Broadway, Room 656
TIME:                  4 p.m.
The paper examines Gavin Hood's award-winning adaptation of Fugard's novel and the lesser known adaptation by Tim Greene of Oliver Twist in terms of their innovative responses to the source texts as well their attempts to re-write the gangster hero for a 'new South Africa,' where the pressure to offer narratives of redemption is strong. The broader context of South African gangsterism and the recent increase in gangster films by South African filmmakers will also be explored.

Lesley Marx was the founding director of the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town and currently teaches film and literature in both the Centre and the Department of English. She has published on South African film and literature, American film and literature and the intersection between American and South African culture.
Sponsored by NYU GSAS Dean's Office, Africa House, Africana Studies, and Cinema Studies.

Africa House and frontiere afrique film
April 2
TITLE:                Dance Got Me
LOCATION:      Screening room, King Juan Carlos Center, 53 Washington Square South
TIME:                6:30 p.m.
twelve years ago, an unemployed African teenager danced on the streets of a Zimbabwean township to earn enough money to eat. today, his london-based contemporary dance company puts on shows at Sadlers wells, the royal Opera House and the Place. this emotional program draws us into the roller-coaster ride he took to get there.

April 3
CANCELLED
TOPIC:            Entrepreneurialism in Africa
LOCATION:   19 West 4th Street, Room 736
TIME:              6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
GUEST:          Monique Maddy, Google
THIS EVENT IS BEING RESCHEDULED. CHECK THE AFRICA HOUSE SITE FOR UPDATES
Monique Maddy is Google's first Entrepreneur in Residence and founder of Adesemi Communications.

Africa Diaspora History Forum
April 4
SPEAKER:           David Anthony, Department of History, UC Santa Cruz
TITLE:                   “Healing, Heresy and Hearsay: Max Yergan as a Challenge in Black Biography ”
LOCATION:           Room 527,
                             King Juan Carlos Center,
                             53 Washington Square South
TIME:                     6:00pm
Dr. Anthony’s recent publication will be available there for purchase:
"Max Yergan: Race Man, Internationalist, Cold Warrior"

AFRICA HOUSE FILM PRESENTATION
April 11
TITLE:              Twelve Disciples of Nelson Mandela
LOCATION:     NOTE: *LOCATION CHANGE*  
                        Room 102, 19 University Place
TIME:                7:00 p.m.
"A fascinating glimpse not just of the early campaigns of the African
National Congress, but also of the way childhood memories can obscure larger truths.  Making copious use of rare archival film and photographs, Mr. Harris traces [his father's] awe-inspiring journey."
Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times
Filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris will be at the screening.
NOTE: *LOCATION CHANGE*

April 17
TOPIC:            Property Norms And State Emergence: A Test Of Property Rights Formation
LOCATION:   19 West 4th Street, Room 736
TIME:              6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
GUEST:           Paul Dower, NYU PhD candidate

This paper presents a model of informal property norms that argues the dependence of economic value on localized knowledge influences the form of property institutions; in particular, property rules become more individual as the importance of localized knowledge increases. The model is then employed to empirically assess how formal property rights emerge.

AFRICA HOUSE SPECIAL EVENT WITH MERCATUS CENTER OF GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
April 24
TOPIC:          Fighting Poverty through Entrepreneurship in Africa
LOCATION:   Room 5-50
                      Kaufman Management Education Center
                      Stern School of Business
TIME:              5:30-7:00 p.m.
Reception to follow.
To register, please go to:
http://www.enterprise-africa.org/Events/id.440/event_detail.asp

Introductory Remarks

William Easterly, Professor of Economics, New York University, and author of The Elusive Quest for Growth and The White Man's Burden
Jeffrey Robinson, Assistant Professor, Stern School of Business, New York University

Panelists

Peter Boettke, Professor of Economics, George Mason University, and Director of Research, Mercatus Center
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, and member of the Working Group on Property Rights at the United Nations Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor
John Kasaona, Assistant Director, Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation, Namibia
Charles Matlou, Smallholder Team Member, Monsanto South Africa
Temba Nolutshungu, Director, Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa

Africa House Book Reading
April 26
SPEAKER:     Zoe Wicomb
LOCATION:    NYU Wasserman Center, Room A
                      133 East 13th Street, 2nd Floor
TIME:              6:00-8:00 p.m.

Africa House Art Opening
April 27
SHOW:           Preconceived Notions
ARTIST:          Maluwa Williams-Myers
LOCATION:     Photography
                       Commuter Lounge 2nd Floor
                            AND
                       Paintings
                       Stovall Gallery 8th Floor
                       Kimmel Center for Student Life
                       60 Washington Square South
TIME: 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Africa House Film Event: "Rwanda: The Renaissance"
May 2
LOCATION:         King Juan Carlos Center Screening Room
                           New York University
                           53 Washington Square South
                           (Between Thompson and Sullivan Streets)
TIME:                   2:00PM -3:30PM
(Screening will begin promptly at 2:30PM)

'Rwanda: The Renaissance' is a half hour documentary that explores the climate for investment and business development in today's Rwanda. H.E.
President Kagame of Rwanda and his delegation will be in New York.
Prominent members of the delegation will be in attendance.

Confirmed:
Mr. Joseph Habineza, Minister of Youth, Culture and Sports Mr. Williams Nkurunziza, Director General, Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency Ms. Rosette Rugamba, Director General, ORTPN (Office Rwandais du Tourisme et des Parcs Nationaux).'

Invited but not confirmed:
H.E. President Paul Kagame

"Rwanda: The Renaissance" was produced by the Africa Channel.

Please RSVP to Kate Bruce kb63@nyu.edu or call 212-998-2191

Seating is limited.