Conference Schedule


Thursday April 26

3:00-7:00pm Registration
3:00-5:00pm Faculty Workshop- "Curating Digital Projects Facilitator- Dr. Sylviane Diouf
5:00-7:00pm Reception- Oscar Ritchie Hall- Foyer

Friday April 27

8:00am-12:00pm Registration- Oscar Ritchie Hall- 2nd Floor Lobby
9:00-9:30am Welcome- Rm. 250
Dr. Babacar M'Baye & Professor Mwatabu Okantah

9:30-11:00am

Session I- ORH 250

Slavery and Colonialization Across the Atlantic World

Chair: Mahli Xuan Mechenbier, Kent State University
  • Michael Modarelli, Walsh University, "Frederick Douglass and the Anglo-Saxon Argument."
  • Dr. Chris Williams, Kent State University, "Sierra Leone Krios/Americo-Liberians."
  • Alex Lovit, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, "The American Colonization Society and the Construction of African American Identity."
  • Maximo G. Martinez, West Virginia University, "Public Policy and Africana Studies."

    • Commentator: Denise A. Harrison, Kent State University

    9:30-11:00am

    Session II- ORH 214

    Black Studies in Transnational Context

    Chair: Timothy Scarnecchia, Kent State University
  • Bincy Abdul Samad, Kent State University, "Hegemony and Alienation in Native Son" A Postcolonial Reading."
  • Babacar Faya, Bowling Green University, "Political and Economic Agency in Postcolonial Theory."
  • Arnissa Hopkins, Cleveland Metropolitan Schools, "Redefining African American Identity."
  • Leroy Davis, Emory University, "'Under the Shadow of Good Health': Mariamne Samad, George Allman and the Saga of a Black Transnational Family in the African Diaspora: The Harlem Years."

    • Commentator: Idris Kabir Syed, Kent State University

    11:00am-12:15pm

    Session III- ORH 214

    Critical Feminism and Undiminished Differences: Gender, Race, Class, Sexualities...

    Chair: Pam Lieske, Kent State University
  • Walter Gershon, Kent State University, "Embodying Blackness: Reconceptualizing African American Girls' Ways of Being in Urban Classrooms and their Implications for STEM Education."
  • Suzanne Holt, Kent State University, "Gender Essentialism and its Shadows."
  • Nicole Rousseau, Kent State University, "Historical Womanist Theory."

    • Commentator: Christopher Williams, Kent State University

    11:00am-12:15pm

    Session IV- ORH 215

    Culture and Politics in the African Diaspora

    Chair: Brian Huot, Kent State University
  • Bobby Hopkins, Warrensville Heights School System, "Music and African American Culture."
  • Kevin McMullen, Kent State University, "Roles of the Trickster Character in African American Folktales."
  • Jamila Okantah, Kent State University, "Rasta Movement and Colonization of Jamaica."
  • Dominique Zordich, Kent State University, The Contributions of Eric Williams."

    • Commentator: Wendy Wilson-Fall, Kent State University
    12:15-1:15pm Lunch- ORH 250

    1:15-2:15pm

    		Welcome

    Dr. Timothy Moerland, Dean- College of Arts and Sciences
    Dr. Wendy Wilson-Fall, Chair- Department of Pan-African Studies

    Keynote Address

    Dr. Sylviane Diouf

    Digital Curator, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

    "Deconstructing and Reconstructing Africans' Identities During Slavery"

    2:15-2:30pm Break

    2:30-4:00pm

    Session V- ORH 214

    Blackness in Literature and Practice

    Chair: Pamela Takayoshi, Kent State University
  • Dan Mills, Clayton State University, "Alpha Behn and John Locke on Slavery, Inherited Rule and Regicide."
  • Joshua M. Murray, Kent State University, "'The Wonder of the World': Claude Mc Kay's Denationalization of the Harlem Renaissance in Home to Harlem."
  • Melissa R. Pompili, Eastern Michigan University, "A Literary Cosmogram: The Influence of Western Narrative Tradition and African Oral Tradition in Michelle Cliff's Free Enterprise."
  • Daryl M. Peavy, Independent Researcher, "Artworks of Great Benin: The Pedagogy of Theft in Africana Studies."
  • Lasana Kazembe, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Spiritwork and Conjurefolk: Unpacking Nommo, Griot, and the Role of the Black Arts Movement in the Development of Africana Studies."

    • Commentator: M.L. Nambuo Temu, Kent State University

    2:30-4:00pm

    Session VI- ORH 250

    Revisiting President Barack Obama in Historical, Political and Literary Context

    Chair: D.M. Hassler, Kent State University
  • Zachary R. Williams, Akron University, "What the African American Wants: African American Policy Matters and the Obama Administration."
  • Willie J. Harrell, Jr., Kent State University, "We Face an Immediate Economic Emergency that Requires Urgent Action."
  • Mwatabu Okantah, Kent State University, "Notes of Another Native Son."
  • Babacar M'baye, Kent State University, "Africa and Black Identity in Barack Obama's Dreams of My Father."
  • Bridgett A. King, Kent State University, "State Policy and Turnout."

    • Commentator: Walter Gershon, Kent State University

    4:00-5:30pm

    Session VII- ORH 250

    Locating Gender

    Chair: Nicole Bissessar, Kent State University
  • Christian Pinnen, University of Southern Mississippi, "Slavery, Freedom and Gender in Colonial Spanish Natchez, 1781-1799."
  • Sharon Bell, Kent State University, "'The Woman Who Went to Man's Town': A Haitian Woman Folk Heroine."
  • Suzanne Ondrus, Kent State University, "Writing as Survival in Sade Adeniran's Imagine This."
  • Sandra M. Cox, Shawnee State University, "African American Studies in Appalachia: Teaching Literature about Slavery and its Antecedents along the Mason-Dixon Line."

    • Commentator: Alene Barnes, Kent State University

    4:00-5:30pm

    Session VIII- ORH 214

    Charting African Identities: From Origins to Contemporary Time

    Chair: Wendy Wilson-Fall, Kent State University
  • George Garrison, Kent State University, "How Africans Traveled in Pre-Columbian America."
  • Idris Syed, Kent State University, "Africanisms in Art: An Examination of Multi-Modal Art in the Historical and Modern Charlestown Maroon Community."
  • Julio Pino, Kent State University, "Cultural Resistance, Slavery, and the City: Afro-Muslims of Salvador, Brazil."
  • Wendy Wilson-Fall, Kent State University, "A New Pan-Africanism."

    • Commentator: George Garrison, Kent State University
    5:30-6:00pm Closing of Conference- ORH 250

    Dr. Wendy Wilson-Fall, Chair of Department of Pan-African Studies

    8:00-11:00pm

    Reggae Night

    Akron's Rhodes Street Rude Boys

    KSU Student Center
    Rathskellar

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