African Literature Association 2008

Roundtable: African Film Directors/Producers in the Global Century

Co-Chairs: Janice Welsch, Western Illinois University; Jude G. Akudinobi, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Tunde Kelani
• Newton Aduaka
• Manthia Diawara
• Awam Amkpa

Panel: The Postcolonial Body I

Chair: G. Oty Agbajoh-Laoye, Monmouth University

• Chinyere Nwahunahya, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Jagua Nana’s Children: Prostitutes in Post-Colonial African Literature
• Felicity Palmer, Columbia University, “A Kinship of Desire:” The landscape of Liberation in Yvonne Vera’s The Stone Virgins
• G. Oty Agbajoh-Laoye, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ, Bodies of Experience, Historical Re/Mapping, and Sites of Oppression/Resistance in Selected Literature by African Writers

Workshop: African Literature Resources for Teaching (Part IV)

Facilitator: Helen Mugambi, California State, Fullerton

French Language Panel 2

Chair: Andre Djiffack, University of Oregon

• Cecile Kyriakos, University of Colorado, Assia Djebar’s Ombre Sultane and La femme sans Sepulture: the Canon of the One Thousand and one Voice or the narrators’ transmission
• Marie-Magdeleine Chirol, Whittier College, Echo et Abyme dans Moi et mon blanc de Pierre Yameogo
• Andre Djiffack, University of Oregon, Bolya Baenga: la polyandrie comme antidote à la polygamie
• Mohammed Saidu Kabia, Virginia State University, Convergence et divergence de la durée et du temps chez Mongo Beti et Emmaneul Matateyou

Panel: Women in Aidoo and Ezeigbo

Chair: A. Sackeyfio, Winston Salem State University

• Rose A. Sackeyfio, Winston Salem State University, Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t: Victimhood and Agency in the Works of Ama Ata Aidoo
• Idom T. Inyabri, University of Calabar, Gendered History and Memory in Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo’s The Last of the Strong Ones, House of Symbols and Children of the Eagle.
• Onuora Benedict Nweke, University of Lagos, The New African Woman and Identity Crisis in Ama Ata Aidoo’s Changes: A Love Story and Akachi Ezeigbo’s Children of Eagle

Panel: Gender, Sexuality, and Cultural Identity in Tess Onwueme's Plays

Chair: Maureen N. Eke, Central Michigan University

• Kanika Batra, Texas Tech University, Staging Feminisms: Surrogate Masculinity and Political Power in Tess
• Romanus Muonoye, University of St. Thomas, Bridging the Atlantic: The Semiotics of Ritual Reunification in Tess Onwueme’s The Missing Face
• Maureen N. Eke, Central Michigan University, Gender and Sexuality in Tess Onwueme's Tell It to Women and Shakara: Dance Hall Queen 

Respondent: Tess Onwueme, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Panel: West African Francophone Discourses: HampâtéBâ, Kourouma, and C. N. Kane

Chair: Carrol F. Coates, Binghamton University, NY

• Carrol F. Coates, Binghamton University, NY,
• Jean Ouedraogo, Plattsburg State University, NY, Langue du pouvoir du langage: les interprètes chez Kourouma et Hampâté Bâ
• Monika Brodnicka, Binghamton University, NY, A philosophical View of Sufism: Tierno Bokar (Ahmadou Hampâté Bâ)
• Cheikh Thiam, Binghamton University, NY, Movement Heterogeneity, and Otherness in Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s Ambiguous Adventure

Technology Workshop Presentation II: Digitally connected globe: African literature, culture and performance

Chair: Mark L Lilleleht, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Presenter: Mohammed Hamid Mohammed, Intel

Title: Digital Harambe: Telling African Stories in 0’s and 1’s to a Generation of Netters

Graduate Student Caucus Panel: Getting Published: Advice from the Editors

Chair: Laura Murphy, Harvard University

• Ato Quayson, University of Toronto
• Abioseh Porter, Drexel University
• Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, Western Illinois University
• Tejumola Olaniyan, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Roundtable: The Year of Anthologies 1: Anthonia Kalu’s Reinner Anthology of African Literature

Chair, Adeleke Adeeko, The Ohio State University

• Moradewun Adejunmobi, University of California, Davis
• Joseph McClaren, Hofstra University
• Adeleke Adeeko, The Ohio State University

Respondent: Anthonia Kalu, University of Northern Colorado

Panel: Indigenous African Performance and Interpretative Traditions
(In Honor of Professor Oyekan Owomoyela and Professor Conteh-Morgan)

Chair: Niyi Afolabi, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

• Abiola Irele, Harvard University (Reminiscences)
• Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, University of Kansas, Lawrence (Eulogy for Owomoyela)
• Pamela Smith, University of Nebraska, Omaha (Eulogy for Conteh-Morgan)
• Niyi Afolabi, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, The Ajanaku in the Tale: Prospects and Pitfalls of Yoruba Paradigms in the New World
• Union Edebiri, University of Lagos, Riddles in Bini Oral Literature
• Akintunde Akinyemi, University of Florida, Gainesville, Yoruba Modern Dramatists and the Art of Praise Singing

Panel: Black Women’s Activism and Emerging Paradigms: from Queens & Pharaohs to Contemporary Transformation Agencies

Chair: Safoura Boukari, Western Illinois University

• Abdul Salau, Delaware State University, Egyptian Goddesses in the Yoruba Culture
• Safoura Boukari, Western Illinois University, The Kemetic Paradigm as a Unifying and Global Comfort Zone

Workshop: Introducing Synchrotex

Peter Seitel, Smithsonian Institute, Introducing Synchrotext. Software for Presenting and Understanding African Oral Literature through Digital Media

Panel: Flight, Journeys and Immigrant Literature

Chair: Dorothy Odartey-Wellington, University of Guelph

• Caryl Loney-McFarlane, Rutgers University, Flying Home
• Dorothy Odartey-Wellington, University of Guelph, Donato Ndongo-Bidgyogo’s El Metro; African Immigrant Literature in Spain

Writers Panel VI: Creative Writing, Personal Experiences and the Global Century

Chair: Niyi Osundare, University of New Orleans

• MARIèTOU Mbaye Bileoma (kEN bUGUL)
• Mariama Barry
• Frank Chipasula
• Toyin Adewale-Gabriel
• Gabeba Baderoon
• Chika Unigwe
• Isiaka Zubair Aliagan

Things Fall Apart 50th Anniversary Luncheon
Speaker: Abiola Irele

Chair: David Boocker, Western Illinois University

Lecture to be preceded with readings of a paragraph or two of translations of TFA – Obiora, Irene & Natasha)

Performance Panel: Traditional African Dadakuada, Waka

Presenter: Olateju Adesida, Northwestern

• Jaigbade Alao, Dadakuada performer
• Adebisi Adeleke, Yoruba drummer
• Sani Dandawo, Wak’a singer

Panel: African Men, Women: A Yearning for Self and Mother Africa

Chair: Pearlie M. Strother-Adams, Western Illinois University

• Pearlie M. Strother-Adams, Western Illinois University, In Search of each other: A yearning for self and mother Africa
• Teresa N. Washington, Grambling State University, Mules and Men and Messiahs: African Continuity in African American Oral Literature
• Pia Thielman, Independent Scholar, Hot Stuff? Representations of Women in Selected Novels by Terry McMillan

Panel: Where is the Artist Taking Us?: Style, Portrayal, Vision, Politics, and more in Africa and African Diaspora Writing!

Chair: Julie Huntington, Clemson University

• J. Roger Kurtz, SUNY, Brockport, Apocalypse Evolving: The Sense of an Ending in Ngugi’s Fiction
• Cara Moyer, Howard University, Exploring the Role of the Artist/Outsider in Bessie Head’s Maru and Zola Maseko’s A Drink in the Passage
• Julie Huntington, Clemson University, Music, Voice and Identity in Simone Schwarz-Bart’s Pluie et Vent sur Télumée Miracle
• Vincent, Odamtten, Hamilton College, The Perils of Recovering Identities in 'Appier Times

Roundtable: The Year of Anthologies 2: Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson’s Blackwell Anthology of Theory and Criticism in African Literature

Chair: Adeleke Adeeko, The Ohio State University

• Kwaku Korang, The Ohio State University
• Therese Migraine-George, University of Cincinnati
• Pius Adesanmi, Carleton University

Respondents: Tejumola Olaniyan, University of Wisconsin, Madison and Ato Quayson, University of Toronto

Panel: Researching Africa

Chair: Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

• Mbulelo Vizikhungo Mzamane, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, The Centre for African Literary Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
• Abdul Salau, Delaware State University, Genetic Correspondences Between Ancient Egyptian and Modern West African Languages
• Mukoma Wa Ngugi, The Task of the African Translator

Panel: Urban Environments

Chair: William Slaymaker, Wayne State College

• Andrea Cristina Muraro, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Looking through Luanda
• William Slaymaker, Wayne State College, Afro-Brazilian Environmental Literature: Lost in Urban Jungles
• Sonja Darlington, Beloit College, Why Race and Class Matter to the Environmental Debate? Tess Onwueme and Bessie Head’s Responses

Panel: Hommage a Joseph Zobel: 1915-2006

Chair: Renee Larrier, Rutgers University

• Debra S. Boyd, Ohio State University, Way B(l)ack Then and Now: Revisiting the Palcy and Warner Versions of Joseph Zobel’s La Rue Cases-Negres
• Anthony Hurley, Stonybrook University, Death in Zobel
• Renee Larrier, Rutgers University, C’est le peintre du petit peuple

Sembene Ousmane Memorial Lecture II

Chair: Femi Ojo-Ade, St. Mary's College of Maryland/University of The Gambia, Gambia

Lecturer: Manthia Diawara, New York University

TRACALA Panel: African Language Performance Panel: TFA in Translation -Yoruba, Igbo, kiSwahili, Gikuyu, Tigrinya, Wolof, Zulu, Krio

Chair: Phanuel Egejuru, Loyola University, New Orleans

• Participants: Akintunde Akinyemi
• Kassahun Checole
• Abdul-Rasheed Na'Allah
• Wangui wa Goro
• Ousseynou Traore
• Phanuel Egejuru
• Obiora Udechukwu
• Pamela Smith
• Vusi Mchunu
• Paul Bandia
• Mukoma Ngugi

Panel: L’Histoire Africaine et Fatou Diome

Chair: Hanétha Vete-Congolo, Bowdoin College

• Guy Tegomo, Queen’s University, Canada, Pouvoir et Violence en Poscolonie: Le Bal des Caimans de Yodi Karone et Mère-Solitude d’Emile Ollivier
• Samuel Zadi, Wheaton College, Solidarité africaine et développement socioéconomique dans Le Ventre de l’Atlantique de Fatou Diome
• Hanétha Vete-Congolo, Bowdoin College, La vérité sous le masque ou la métaphore d’une Afrique moderne dans Ketala de Fatou Diome

Panel: Soyinka’s Art and Comparative Perspectives

Chair: Harry Garuba, University of Cape Town, South Africa

• Bernth Lindfors, University of Texas at Austin, Paton’s Discovery/Soyinka’s Invention
• Patrice Nganang, SUNY-Stony Brook, Portrait of The Artist as a Character. African Literature and Self-Reflectivity
• Eckhard Breitinger, Bayreuth African Studies, Germany, Dionysos and His Brother Ogun: African Particularity and Classical Mythology

Panel: The Postcolonial Body II

Chair: Fatoumata Diahara Traore, McGill University

• Karen Martino, University of Rochester, Depicting the era of Osofisan's "Nkrumah Ni! Africa Ni!" through the Dance Drama forms of West Africa
• Nur-d-din Temitayo Busari, University of Ibadan, Women of Postcolony, Nwapa’s and Marshall’s Works
• Fatoumata Diahara Traore, McGill University, From Human to Waste”: Social Transformation and the question of historical production in Adame Ba Konare’s Quand L’ail se frotte à l’encens.

Roundtable: What’s Wrong with Human Rights Films (Part Two)

Chair: Ken Harrow, Michigan State University

• Maryellen Higgins, Pennsylvania State University
• Chantal Kalisa, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
• Joyce Ashuntantang, University of Connecticut
• Juliana Makuchi Nfah-Abbenyi, North Carolina State University

Panel: Resisting Hegemony Through Film

Chair: Ian Munro, William Jewell College

• Ian Munro, William Jewell College, Time, Space, Memory: The Work of Abderrahmane Sissako
• Kayode O Ogunfolabi, Michigan State University, Negotiating Global Hegemony in Sony Labou Tansi’s The Seven Solitudes of Lorsa Lopez and Djibril Diop Mambety’s Hyenas

Authors Book Signing

Chair: Peter Cole, Western Illinois University

• Veronique Tadjo
• Sefi Atta
• Tanure Ojaide
• Niyi Osundare

Cultural Expressions

Facilitators: Safoura Boukari and James Bukari

ALA Awards Banquet

Keynote: Sefi Atta