Courses Offered: At the Faculty of Arts, Jadavpur University, Kolkata
Four Extra departmental courses on the cultures of the African Diaspora, including North America, Latin America and the Carribbeans, entitled African Cultures across the World to Undergraduate students in the Arts Faculty. Number of faculty members: 2 + 5 Research Fellows
Coordinator:Prof. Ipsh*ta Chanda
Regular Activities:
Palaver, an annual meeting of a scholars’ forum on areas under research or study, with at least one scholar from Africa present. Being held since 2002, before the inception of the Centre, in collaboration with different Departments and Schools of the Arts Faculty. Since 205, the Centre has continued this practice. Nine such Palaver meetings have been held so far. Invited Lectures:
Professor Jyotirmoy Pal Choudhuri: “Making the Map of Africa”, lecture series for Postgraduate students offering the Area Studies course Literatures of Africa
Professor Anshu Dutta: “History of slaves transported from Bengal to South Africa.”
Dr. Raymond Suttner, Albertina and Walter Sisulu Research Centre, University of South Africa, on Regulations of Masculinities and Race in the anti-apartheid movement and the roots of the present. Innes: Professor Emeritus of Post Colonial Literature, University of Kent: “After Things Fall Apart: African Writers Responding to Achebe”
Professor Patricia Hayes, SEPHIS and CSSS Fellow, on South African Colonial Photographs
Prof. Leonda Keniston, Dept. of Sociology, John Tyler Community College, Richmond, Virginia, on the roots of the African-American experience
Forthcoming: Professor Isabel Hofmeyr, Professor of African Literature at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (Director, Centre for Indian Studies in South Africa, University of Johannesburg). International Seminars:
Hosted the Eastern Regional Session of the Indian Celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Achebe @ 50, sponsored by the World Achebe Foundation, New York and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in November, 2008. Proceedings of the seminar published as Palaver III: Celebrating Chinua Achebe, Jadavpur University and Worldview Press, Delhi, 2009
Collaborated with School of Media Communications and Culture and Valerian Soccer Foundation in organizing an International seminar on Cultures of Football, April 2010. Organised a special panel on South Africa, World Cup 2010 at this seminar. Trivia:
The Centre is collaborated, in August 2009, in teaching African American Literature to under graduate students at John Tyler Community College, Richmond, Virginia through an interactive blog, run jointly by Prof Mary Beth Wentworth at John Tyler and Prof. Ipsh*ta Chanda at Jadavpur. African Cultures Across the World: Four extra-departmental courses at the Undergraduate level on the literatures and cultures of African descent across the Americas, spanning music, dance and literary genres in North and Latin America and in the Caribbeans. Being offered at the Faculty of Arts in Jadavpur University since 2008.
