Five Colleges, Incorporated: Africans on Africa series 2009

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Speakers on human rights, politics in Africa featured in Five Colleges series

View a poster of this series.

Aisatta Tall Sall, a lawyer and activist in Dakar, Senegal and Penda Mbow, a history professor at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar will be in western Massachusetts from Friday to Thursday, April 3-9, 2009, to share their perspectives on human rights in West Africa in a speaker series Africans on Africa: Gender, Generation and Globalization.

The series, coordinated by Five Colleges, Inc., takes place at Westfield State College in Westfield, MA, Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA, and Smith College in Northampton, MA.

The three events in the series are free and open to the public.

Women and Senegalese Politics: Life Stories and Community Dialogue
April 6, 7 p.m., Scanlon Banquet Hall at Westfield State College
Mbow and Tall Sall will speak, with a reception to follow.

Senegalese film director and writer Ousmeme Sembene’s short film Heroism of Everyday Life
April 7, 7:30 p.m., Gamble Auditorium in the Art Museum Building at Mount Holyoke College
Samba Gadjigo, a professor in the French and African American and African Studies departments at Mount Holyoke, will introduce the film. A panel discussion with Mbow and Tall Sall will follow.

Women, Democracy, and Civil Society in Africa: The Case of Senegal
April 9, 7:30 p.m., in Room 106 in Seelye Hall at Smith College
Presented by Tall Sall and Mbow.

Penda Mbow, former minister of culture for Senegal, is one of the world's leading voices on the rights of women in Islamic societies. She has written extensively on the evolution of Islam's relationship with democracy in Senegal and on gender, human rights, and religion in the Islamic world. She serves on the editorial board of several publications, including The Study of Religions in Africa, Africa Zamani, and Convergence. She has also served as cultural advisor to the Senegalese Department of Ethnography and Historical Heritage. She was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur Francaise (Knight of the French Legion of Honor) in 2003 in recognition of her achievements as a scholar and political activist.

Aisatta Tall Sall, former Senegalese minister of information and communication, is committed to democratization, social justice, and government accountability. She is currently a member of the politburo of the Senegalese Socialist Party, one of the leading political groups in the Senegalese opposition. She also starred in the film Bamako as the prosecutor in the mock trial of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Five Colleges organized the series with The Global Women's History Project and Africa Alive! developed by Elise G. Young, a Middle East historian and Westfield State history professor. The series also is sponsored and supported by the African Cultural Council of Springfield, as well as faculty and administration at Westfield State, Mount Holyoke and Smith, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "We designed the series so that all of the events complement each other," Young said. "We encourage participants to attend all three events, if possible, to enhance their learning experience."

For more information, visit the Five College African Studies Program Web site or contact Elise Young (also at 413-572-8237).

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