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Gender and Sexuality in Africa Symposium

Posted on November 20, 2017 by Kirsten Giebutowski

  • Symposium organizer Ayo Coly with invited speaker Kuukuwa Andam. This and other photographs taken by Tyler Akeem Anderson, '18.

  • Speaker Kwame Edwin Otu.

  • Panel Chair Marc Epprecht and speakers Naminata Diabate, Kwame Edwin Otu, and Emma Paszat.

  • Speaker Brillian Muhonja.

  • 2017-18 Thurgood Marshall Fellow Celina de Sa talks with student Carolyne Musyoka ('20).

Gender and Sexuality in Africa: Transdisciplinary Conversations brought together scholars, artists, and activists for a productive two days of roundtables and panel discussions November 3-4, 2017.

Presented by the AAAS Program, the symposium was co-sponsored by the Comparative Literature Program, the Dean of the Arts & Humanities, the Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Dickey Center, the Leslie Center, and the Office of the Provost.

A photography exhibition by Faith Rotich ('18) accompanied the symposium.

Symposium schedule:

Friday, November 3, 5:30 pm-7:30 pm
Keynote Roundtable: Writers, Critics, and Activists in Conversation
Moderator: Ayo Coly, Comparative Literature & African Studies, Dartmouth College
--Frieda Ekotto (Afroamerican and African Studies, Comparative Literature, University of Michigan), Elnathan John, Fungai Machirori, Chika Unigwe

Saturday November 4, 9 am-10:30 am
Panel: Women and Love: Sex and Sexual Violence
Chair: Lisa V. Adams, Center for Health Equity, Dartmouth College
--Susan Bartels (Emergency Medicine, Queen’s University): Outcomes of Sexual Violence Related Pregnancies in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Allison Goebel (Environmental Studies, Queen’s University): Disordered Relations: Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Urban South Africa, Nomusa Mngoma (Kinesiology and Health Studies, Queen’s University): Reports of Same-Sex Behaviours in a Community Sample in Sisonke District, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

Saturday November 4, 11 am--12:30 pm
Panel: The Politics of Gender and Sexuality in African Studies
Chair: Jesse Weaver Shipley, African and African American Studies Program, Dartmouth College
--Neville Hoad (English, University of Texas at Austin): Erotopolitics: Africa, Sovereignty and Minoritarian Sexualities, Z’étoile Imma (English, Tulane University): South Africa’s Black Lesbian Cultures, Erotic Epistemologies, and Archives of Pleasure, Faith Rotich (Economics, Dartmouth College ‘18): Seeing Skin

Saturday November 4, 2:30 pm-4 pm
Panel: Queering African Studies and Feminisms: Africanizing
Queer Studies?
Chair: Marc Epprecht, History and Global Development Studies, Queen’s University
--Naminata Diabate (Comparative Literature, Cornell University): Whither and Whence African Queer Feminism?, Kwame Edwin Otu (Anthropology, University of Virginia): Normative Collusions and­­ Amphibious Evasions: Sassoi and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana, Emma Paszat (Political Science, Queen’s University): Beyond Criminalization: Analyzing the Status of LGBT Communities and Activism in Rwanda

Saturday November 4, 4:30 pm-6 pm
Roundtable: Working/Writing within African Frameworks: Which Frameworks for Gender and Sexuality in Africa?
Chair: Robert Baum, Religion and African Studies, Dartmouth College
--Kuukuwa Andam (Law, Queen’s University), Robert Baum (Religion & African Studies, Dartmouth College), Marame Gueye (English, East Carolina University), Besi Muhonja (Africana Studies, James Madison University)