Alphonse Raphaël Ndiaye, Ph.D., a West African Research Association Resident Fellow at Boston University, will speak about "Kinship Joking Relationships as Indigenous Conflict Resolution Mechanisms in West Africa" at Kent State University on October 24 at 7 p.m. in Ritchie Hall, Room 214, following a reception at 5:15 p.m. on the first floor of Ritchie Hall. Ndiaye will also give a workshop on how to teach African literatures, cultures, and politics to students. The workshop is entitled, "Léopold Sédar Senghor's Poetry: From his 'Childhood Seereer Kingdom' to International Recognition," and will also take place in Ritchie Hall, Room 250, on October 25 at 10 a.m. Ndiaye will end the workshop by playing guitar and singing a few songs in Seereer language.
The lecture is presented by Kent State University's Department of Pan-African Studies and Department of English with additional support from the University Teaching Council, Honors College and Departments of Philosophy, Political Science, and the Institute for Applied Linguistics.
The Seereer (also spelled Serer) are one of the major ethnic groups of Senegal from which the country's first president and major world poet (Léopold Sédar Senghor) traces his paternal ancestry. Senghor co-founded the global black literary and cultural movement (known as the Négritude Movement) which was strongly influenced by the Harlem Renaissance Movement.
Ndiaye is the director of the Léopold Sédar Senghor Foundation in Senegal. This UNESCO-affiliated organization aims to preserve and enrich the cultural heritage of Africa, and promote research on applied culture in art, literature, human sciences and the teaching of national languages.Prior to his current function, he was the Director of Senegal's Cultural Archives and Public Libraries before leading the Environmental Education program in the Sahelian Region of the development-focused international organization called Enda Tiers Monde (Enda Third World).He is fluent in four languages (Seereer, Wolof, French, and English) and has done extensive research on African cultures and history. His numerous essays appear in key publications, such as Présence Africaine, Revue Ethiopiques, Revue sénégalaise de philosophie and in many volumes. Ndiaye is also the author of the well-known doctoral thesis entitled, La Notion de parole chez les Sereer (Sénégal) [The notion of Orality of the Seereer (Senegal)"].
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Media Contact:
Babacar M'Baye, Ph.D., bmbaye@kent.edu, 234-312-8012