January 22 | 11:45am | 471 GRI
"Deciphering the Adaptive Success of an African Rodent Pest (Mastomys natalensis)"
Bonginkosi Gumbi, University of Florida

January 28 | 11:45am | 471 GRI
"Exploring Kannywood: Contestations and Negotiations between Sufi and Salafi Muslims"
Musa Ibrahim, University of Florida
 

January 31 | 3:30pm | 404 GRI
"‘Dis/eased Others’ - Identity and Agency in Literary Representations of Migrants of African Origin"
Tasiyana Javangwe, Midlands State University
 

SEAN/SERSAS Meeting

Please send information about awards or other accomplishments by UF Center for African Studies community members to ufcasbulletin@gmail.com for their inclusion in the news bulletin.

Sanginga has more than 21 years of experience in agricultural research and development, particularly in applied microbial ecology, plant nutrition, and integrated natural resources management in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, having worked with the University of Zimbabwe, IITA, International Atomic Energy Agency in Austria, and Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute of CIAT. He is a board member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel, administered by UNEP; advises the Global Environment Facility on sustainable land management global issues; is a member of the editorial board of Applied Ecology Journal; and an occasional editor for Soil Biology and Biochemistry, Biology and Fertility of Soil, Plant and Soil, Nutrient Cycling in agroecosystems, Soil Science Society of American Journal, African Crop Science Journal, and Nigeria Journal of Soil Science. He is currently the Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture with Head Quarter in Nigeria.

He began his lecture by describing some of the challenges in the agricultural sector in Africa. He detailed the high costs of annual food imports in Africa, which are anticipated to increase almost three-fold by 2025 as domestic farmers age and are not being replaced by youth, increasing reliance on food imports rather than locally grown products. Dr. Sanginga refers to this as a challenge of leadership, where the large, untapped workforce of unemployed youth is not being utilized or incentivized to participate in the agricultural sector. His work with IITA seeks to address this issue through programs that train and encourage youth to become involved in agribusiness. His lecture also brought up other innovations that IITA is developing to address problems in the agricultural sector. One such product is Aflasafe, which reduces Aflatoxin at corn harvest. IITA partnered with the Gates Foundation and University of Arizona to scale up production of Aflasafe, with the intent to expand services to other countries where agriculture has been significantly impacted by Aflatoxin. Dr. Sanginga also mentioned advances in the industrialization of cassasva including research on product development and diversification, agronomy and weed control, breeding and genomics, and semi-autotrophic hydroponics.

“Archaeology of Atlantic Modernity: Global Experience, Local Meaning.” Dr. Ogundiran is chancellor’s professor of Africana studies and editor of African Archaeological Review. His publications include: Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic (co-edited, 2014); Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa (co-edited, 2012); “Material life and domestic economy in a frontier of the Oyo Empire during the Mid-Atlantic Age.” International Journal of African Historical Studies (2009); Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African Diaspora (co-edited, 2007); “Ceramic spheres and historical process of regional networks in Yoruba-Edo region, Nigeria, A.C. 13th-19th centuries.” Journal of Field Archaeology (2003).

Dr. Ogundiran’s research over the past 15 years has broadened to consider the epistemology and ontology of Atlantic modernity in Africa, considering how Africa is treated as ‘opposite of Europe’ in the context of the Atlantic world. He argues that the contemporaneous African experience is still boxed outside of the contexts of modernity and needs to be put into historical perspective for a more accurate representation. He argues that there are eight components of Atlantic modernity—1) New values of individuality and personhood 2) New class and gender formations 3) Addictive consumption 4) Reorganization and redistribution of labor 5) Commercial revolution, merchant capital and Atlantic slavery 6) Trading empires, militaristic elites and merchant princes 7) Drought and ecological instability and 8) Unknown/Open to future discovery. His lecture considered these eight components through the analysis of the material culture and archaeological record of the Oyo Empire.

Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships provide support for instruction in approved African languages along with area studies coursework on Africa. For more information on eligibility and application procedures, follow the links below. Current fellows seeking additional support must re-apply.
 
Application deadline is 3 February.
 
Foreign Language & Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
 
Graduate AY2020-21 & Summer 2020 Fellowships http://africa.ufl.edu/academics-programs/graduate-studies/flas-fellowships/
 
Undergraduate AY2020-21 & Summer 2020 Fellowships http://africa.ufl.edu/academics-programs/undergraduate-studies/flas-fellowships/