CONFERENCE

NEW GEOGRAPHIES IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART

The Harvard University Committee on African Studies announces a two-day conference to be held on Friday, February 29 and Saturday, March 1, 2008. Drawing on the fields of contemporary art and Africanist art scholarship, this interdisciplinary convergence will address issues of translocality, transgression, and notions of place both within the continent and vis-à-vis Africa and the rest of the world. The conference understands the trope of geographies in its relationship to Africa as both a physical place, and as a discursive space of memory and affiliation. Friday’s program includes four panels, each composed of two thirty-minute presentations on current research about these themes. Papers will be presented for discussion by Maria Magdelana Campos-Pons, Zoe Whitely, Allan deSouza, Lisa Binder, Dominique Malaquais, Elizabeth Harney, Gary van Wyk, and Steven Nelson. Saturday’s program begins with a two-hour round table discussion with artists and scholars, including Ute Meta Bauer, Bili Bidjocka, Hudita Mustafa, Chika Okeke-Agulu, and Paul Stopforth. Okwui Enwezor will close the conference with a keynote address.

The conference is open to the public. There is no registration fee, but pre-registration by February 25, 2008 is encouraged.

Co-sponsored by the Office for the Arts at Harvard.

To register and for further conference details, see: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~afrart/