Africa Past & Present

Prof. Alois Mlambo (University of Pretoria) discusses Zimbabwe’s deindustrialization and economic decline, its relationship with South Africa, and the role of Pan-Africanism and “patriotic history” in sustaining a new authoritarian nationalism.

Jeremy Prestholdt (U. California, San Diego) on East African commodities, culture, and “transnational imagination,” featuring his forthcoming book, Icons of Dissent (on Che, Marley, Tupac, Bin Laden). He also discusses changing meanings of Indian Ocean Africa and how technologies impact global circulation of ideas, people and commodities. With guest host, Laura Fair.

John Mugane (Harvard University) on his book, The Story of Swahili, a history of the international language and its speakers. Mugane sheds light on enduring questions: Who is Swahili? What is authentic Swahili? He also discusses the state of publishing in Swahili, and the challenges and approaches to teaching African languages in the U.S.   Part of a podcast series […]

Allen Isaacman (University of Minnesota) discusses his recent Herskovits Award-winning book, Dams, Displacement and the Delusion of Development: Cahora Bassa and its Legacies in Mozambique, 1965-2007, how the work was researched, its significance, and the lives of those disrupted by the dam. He also talks of his long trajectory doing Mozambican history, book series publishing in […]

Fallou Ngom (African Languages Director, Boston U.) on his new book Muslims Beyond the Arab World: the Odyssey of Ajami and the Muridiyya. Focusing on Senegambia and Ahmadu Bamba, Ngom discusses Ajami literary texts — African languages in Arabic scripts — as sources for history. He also reflects on creating online Ajami collections, teaching and learning African languages […]

Professor Amidu O. Sanni (Lagos State University) on his work for the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project and preservation of West African intellectual heritage. He discusses the importance of Ajami sources (African languages written in Arabic script) for historical and cultural analysis and suggests possibilities for future research and training initiatives.  

Nicholas van de Walle (Cornell) and Michael Wahman (Missouri) analyze the 2016 Zambian presidential and parliamentary elections. The two political scientists discuss the controversial results, the role of the Constitutional Court in the process, violence, and the influence of international election observers. With guest host, Jessica Achberger. Part of a podcast series in collaboration with the U.S. African Studies […]

Micere Githae Mugo (Syracuse, Emeritus) and Simon Gikandi (Princeton) discuss the making and aftermath of The Trial of Dedan Kimathi and, on the 40th anniversary of the play, reflect on the play’s historical and political significance in Kenya and beyond; its innovative elements; and researching, writing, and enacting the play with Ngugi wa Thiong’o and […]

John Aerni-Flessner (MSU) on his forthcoming book Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development. Discussion focuses on development projects and their local, national and international politics; perspectives of Basotho youth, farmers, chiefs and government; and interactions with South Africa, U.S. Peace Corps and the foreign aid industry.

Artist Sam Jury on the neglected situation of Sahrawi peoples’ refugee camps, her video installation To Be Here on their daily lives, and about the women who built the camps. Additional background on the Sahrawi movement is provided by Richard Knight (African Activist Archive).    

Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Greg Marinovich (Boston University) on the genealogy and ethics of his work and on his new book: Murder at Small Koppie: The Real Story of the Marikana Massacre—one of the largest killing of civilians in South Africa since 1960. For more: read the Marikana Commission of Inquiry Report here and watch Miners Shot Down here.

Tejumola Olaniyan (Wisconsin–Madison) on African cartoonists, their depictions of the body and struggles with censorship, and the aesthetics of corpulence in African political cartooning. He elaborates on the deeper origins and gendered nature of satire in African societies and also discusses his website Africa Cartoons.com.

This centenary episode brings together selections from the first eight years of the podcast. The chosen segments broadly represent earliest and latest episodes, different African countries and regions, and notable contributions by local and international guests on a number of subjects and themes.

Anthropologist Rosemarie Mwaipopo (U. of Dar es Salaam) on artisanal and small-scale mining in Tanzania. She discusses the roles of women;grassroots dimensions, including cultural and gender dynamics; and government policies. The interview concludes with a comparative look at small-scale mining in Africa.

Author Ben Rawlence (Open Society Foundations Fellow) on his new book: City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp. He describes working in Dadaab, Kenya, and discusses Somali refugees’ daily struggles, their personal lives, social relationships, trade, and Islam. The interview closes with reflections on the international dimensions of the conflict in Somalia and prospects for peace.

Susanne Klausen (History, Carleton U.) on the history and politics of women’s reproductive rights in South Africa. Our discussion of race, nationalism, and women’s sexuality focuses on her new book, Abortion Under Apartheid, the first full-length study of the history of abortion in an African context. The interview concludes with an assessment of the present and future of abortion rights in […]

Toyin Falola (History, Texas; President, African Studies Association) on Yoruba history and culture; language policy in Nigeria; creativity and decolonization; forms of community action in “hyper-modern” times; and the meaning of Buhari’s victory in the 2015 presidential election.

Ganiyu Akinloye Jimoh (Creative Arts, University of Lagos) on his work in Nigeria as a popular cartoonist, with the pen name “Jimga,” and as a cartoon scholar. Issues discussed include: political aspects of cartooning; visual aspects of the art; language and graphic styles; and the future of cartooning in Nigeria.

Professor Renfrew Christie (University of the Western Cape) on South African advances and challenges since 1994; educational transformations at UWC; his role as an anti-apartheid student activist, exposure of South Africa’s nuclear bomb and subsequent imprisonment, and nuclear issues today.

Lisa Lindsay (North Carolina) on her forthcoming biography of James Churchwill Vaughan—whose life provides insights into the bonds of slavery and family and the differing prospects for people of African descent in the 19th-century Atlantic world. Vaughan’s odyssey took him from slavery-ridden South Carolina to Liberia and finally Nigeria, where he was involved in the […]