Initiatives
AFRICANA FILM FESTIVAL
The Africana Film Festival, a collaborative project of the Departments of Modern Culture and Media and Africana Studies, features works by new and established filmmakers from Africa and the African Diaspora. The Africana Film Festival hosts filmmakers and scholars who participate in panels and forums covering a wide range of topics related to filmmaking and film analysis. Features, shorts, documentaries, musicals, politically and historically-conscious narratives, ‘arthouse’ and 'mainstream' films as well as films by women, men, established directors and upstarts, from countries within Africa and the African Disapora are included in the Festival.
The 2007 Africana Film Festival is scheduled for October 17-21, 2007 at the Cable Car Cinema and Cafe.
| Africana Film Festival Directors: | |
| Karen Allen Baxter, Africana Studies | |
| Anthony Bogues, Africana Studies | |
| Richard Manning, Modern Culture and Media | |
| Philip Rosen, Modern Culture and Media | |
TRILATERAL RECONNECTIONS
Brown University, The University of Cape Town, South Africa and the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica signed an historic Memoranda of Agreement formalizing the Trilateral Reconnections collaboration.
This trilateral collaborative--built around research, teaching, faculty and student exchanges--was developed during a series of strategic planning meetings held between 2004 and 2006 at the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, the Centre for Caribbean Thought, University of the West Indies, and the Africana Studies Department, Brown University.
The first project, a Workshop - The African and African Diasporic Knowledges Project - was held at the University of Cape Town, October 23rd thru 25th, 2006. Invited scholars from Africa, the Caribbean and North America presented thought papers framing intellectual problems around themes to emphasize dialogical and generative thinking, rather than the individual presentation of fully argued papers. Scholars posed questions posted on the workshop website that were used as a point of entry into the extensive Workshop discussions.
This Workshop brought Africa and African diasporic knowledges to the centre of intellectual inquiry challenging the pedagogical canons of modern discourse as well as the disciplinary and discursive boundaries that frame them. The Workshop also explored, as culture and narrative, the multiple systems of knowledge created by and about continental Africa and the diaspora. In addition to the themed Workshops a graduate student workshop was held with grad students from the three participating universities.
Following the very successful October Workshop a February 2007 planning session will set next steps that will include curriculum development, publications, and other research initiatives incorporating some of the questions and discussions from the October Workshop in Cape Town.
University of Cape Town, South Africa
Centre for African Studies
University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
Centre for Caribbean Thought
Brown University
Africana Studies Department
CONVERSATIONS IN AFRICANA WRITING
One of the unique features of Brown’s Africana Studies department is that it is the home of three writers of world significance: John Edgar Wideman, Ama Ata Adioo and George Lamming. The presence of these three writers brings an unparallel literary and intellectual experience to students while creating the possibilities for broad and serious reflections upon writing as an art form and its relationship to questions of history, gender, race and human life in the contemporary moment. In order to achieve some of these objectives the department has launched an initiative called Conversations in Africana Writing. The first conversation was held in 2004 and the second one focusing on women writers will be held in 2007.
NATIVE TO NATIVE
This on-going collaboration provides a venue for both community and student dialogues and forums that address historical and current issues of the primary indigenous peoples of Southeastern New England (Pequot, Narragansett, and Wampanoag) who were most affected by territorial wars with colonizers, the export of their peoples, and the import of African peoples, the institution of slavery and the slave trade before, during and after colonization.
| Native to Native Founder and Coordinator: | |
| Donna Edmonds Mitchell, Administrative Manager | |
| Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Theatre | |
| Donna_Mitchell@Brown.edu | |
JOURNALS
CLR James Journal