"Reconfiguring African Studies" Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth

During this episode, Cluster fellow Valerie Nur talks with her fellowship host Prof. Dr. Joël Glasman (Chair of African History at the University of Bayreuth) about her research on the topic of artisanal knowledge and skills from a mobility perspective. Artisans in Niger often offer their services on the road and, in doing so, rely on a broad kinship network during their travels, within which knowledge, practices, and materials are exchanged, modified, and enhanced. By looking beyond single workshops and individual skills, I understand artisanal skill as a shared dynamic practice and places and routes of learning and exchange as hubs of technology and knowledge transfer over long distances. During her research, Nur aims to conceptualize craft as an epistemology of an exclusive professional community.

In this latest episode Prof. Dr. Sabelo Ndlovu Gatsheni talks with associated fellow Dr. Halil Ibrahim Arpa about his research project entitled “Decolonial Hi/stories: Literary Subversion of Colonial and Post-colonial Historiographies”. In this project, Arpa scrutinizes the coloniality of knowledge against Black and Islamic communities in the Global North and alternative epistemologies to the crisis of modernity in the Global South. 

The episode was recorded during Dr. Arpa's stay at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

In this episode of the Cluster Conversations Dr. Franz Kogelmann talks with Cluster fellow Dr. Chembea Suleiman Athuman about his project "Poetry (Qasidah) and Women’s Bodies in the Creation, Dissemination of Islamic Knowledge and Cultural Identity in Zanzibar". The study examines how active involvement of women in Islamic poetry (qasidah) helps (de-)construct traditional dynamics in the production and dissemination of Islamic knowledge and creation of cultural identity(-ies) along the East African coast. While Islamic knowledge production and dissemination was largely associated with male ulama (clerical class) in textual and religious spaces, advancement of media technology has caused a shift where qasidah not only support religious themes but also provide variations in the creation and transmission of knowledge and religious community identity. This shift, though rapidly gaining currency across Muslim communities, is explored within the microcosm of Zanzibar to understand how performance of poetry presents an avenue through which Muslim women engage with religious discourses in the region.

The episode was recorded during Dr. Chembea's fellowship at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

In this episode, Cluster fellow Prof. Dr. Don Edward Walicek (University of Puerto Rico) talks with his host Prof. Dr. Susanne Mühleisen (University of Bayreuth) about Walicek's research project “Language Ideologies and Social Contact Involving West Africans and the English on the Gold Coast.” Working on this project during his fellowship with the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, Walicek examines dynamics of linguistic contact among Europeans and West Africans who were involved in or otherwise impacted by the Atlantic slave trade. Focusing on language ideologies, it pays special attention to the English presence on the Gold Coast during the 16th and 17th centuries (1553-1700) given that the region was a major source of people sold into slavery as well as a point from which many departed for the Caribbean. The analysed materials consist of documents that have not been fully examined by linguists, such as local correspondence of the Royal African Company of England.

The episode was recorded during Dr. Walicek's fellowship at the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth.

In this episode, Cluster fellow Dr. Josph Kasule talks with his host Junior Research Group Leader Dr. Joschka Philipps about Kasule’s research in general and the latest book project “Intimate colonialities, public intellectualism and political revolution in Uganda” that he has been working on during his fellowship in Bayreuth.

In this episode, Cluster fellow Dr. Maja Figge talks with her host Prof. Dr. Christine Hanke about her research that focuses on the notion of circulation. During her fellowship Figge looked at the transtemporal bonds between militant African cinemas and Afro-diasporic post-cinemas, contributing to her recent book project, a collection of essays entitled “Black (Post-)Cinemas: Genealogies, Practices, Aesthetics”.

In this episode, Cluster fellow Alexandre Vieira talks with his host Ute Fendler about the African influence on Brazilian music in general and his music in particular.

Cluster fellow Dr. Thokozani Mhlambi talks with his host Dr. Katharina Fink about his life, his love for music, his artist fellowship in the Cluster and his latest project - a music-based story set in the ancient Zulu capital of Umgungundlovu.

In this latest episode of the Africa Multiple Cluster Dr. Anthony Diala (University of the Western Cape) talks with his host Prof. Dr. Thoko Kaime (Chair of African Legal Studies at the University of Bayreuth) about his fellowship during which he worked on a book project on the theoretical framework for legal integration.

Cluster fellows Dr. Judith Bachmann and Dr. Femi Jegede are in Bayreuth to work on their tandem project “The Conquest of Distance”. In this episode of the Cluster Conversations the two fellows talk with their host Prof. Dr. Eva Spies, Professor for the Study of Religion with focus on Africa at the University of Bayreuth about their project and how they approach the subject "Ifá practices" from different angles.

The ninth episode of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence podcast presents a 20-minute talk and 20-minute debate with Dr. Kai Koddenbrock about "African states in world markets: Systemic hierarchies and the postcolonial International Political Economy of governing Senegal".

The fifth episode of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence podcast presents a 30-minute talk with Dr. Franca Attoh & Dr. Kayode Eesuola titled: "A cross sectional survey on IntraAfrican Migration and Xenophobia"

The third episode of the Cluster's Sprint Lectures on African mobilities presents a talk entitled "COVID-19 and the politics of (im)mobility in Uganda" with with Paddy Kinyera (Postdoctoral researcher in Political Geography at University of Bayreuth) and Martin Doevenspeck (Professor for Political Geography at the University of Bayreuth, Germany).

The second episode of the Cluster's Sprint Lectures on African mobilities presents a talk entitled "Invisible Intellectuals, African Academic Mobility in Question" with Nadine Machikou - Université de Yaounde 2, Kamerun. 

The first episode of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence podcast presents a 20-minute talk and 20-minute debate with Parvati Raghuram (Professor of Geography at Open University) entitled "Four Moves for Reshaping Migration Categories".