Theme: Disobedient Knowledge: Rethinking Higher Education with Africa and the Global South
May 10–12 | Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
Free and Open to the Public
Program
Join us for a three-day celebration of African and Afro-diasporic knowledge, art, and activism—marking the relaunch of the African Studies Program at Kalamazoo College. Events include lectures, art exhibits, roundtables, and community conversations with internationally acclaimed writers, artists, and scholars.
Friday, May 10 – Opening Day
🕓 4:00 PM – Opening Lecture
“Decolonizing Knowledges and Building Transformative Partnerships”
Speaker: Prof. Divine Fuh
Director, Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), University of Cape Town, Head of the Department of Anthropology
Vice President, African Studies Association of Africa
This keynote reflects on the African Charter for Transformative Research Collaborations and interrogates the hierarchies within the global scientific ecosystem. Fuh asks: How can we build decolonial and just research partnerships?
🖼️ 5:30 PM – Art Exhibit Opening & Artist Talk
Artist: Anthony Obayomi (Nigeria)
Multimedia artist, National Geographic Explorer
Obayomi’s immersive exhibition explores the ideologies embedded in systems of measurement, cultural erasure, and Indigenous ways of knowing. His work uses photography, film, and sculpture to question how art can disrupt colonial epistemologies.
Saturday, May 11 – Roundtables & Public Lecture
🕑 2:00 PM – Roundtable: Ethics, Knowledge, and Reciprocity
Featuring:
- Dr. Cyndy Margarita García-Weyandt (Kalamazoo College)
The Science of Our Mother Corn: Ethics of Knowledge and Reciprocal Research - Dr. Herimampita Rarivomanantsoa (University of Antananarivo, Madagascar)
Embedding Local Contexts in Ethical Review
This dialogue explores how Indigenous and local ethical frameworks challenge extractive research practices and colonial legacies in global academic knowledge production.
🕔 5:30 PM – Public Lecture
“African Disobedient Feminism: Madness as an Approach to Emancipation”
Speaker: Ken Bugul (Senegal)
Award-winning author of The Abandoned Baobab, Riwan, and Ashes and Embers
Through her writing, Bugul reclaims the figure of the “madwoman” as a symbol of feminist resistance. She explores multilingual expression, non-conformist thought, and writing as an unapologetic space of decolonial liberation.
Sunday, May 12 – Art, Archives, and Afro-Diasporic Futures
📍 Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership
🕚 11:00 AM – Artist Conversation
“Sadza Space: Making Cultural Memory in Detroit”
Speaker: Chido Chido Johnson (Zimbabwe/Detroit)
Sculptor, community builder, and founder of the Zimbabwe Cultural Center of Detroit
A conversation about the birth of Sadza Space, a new diasporic art hub grounded in Zimbabwean culture and community-centered creativity.
🕛 12:00 PM – Lecture & Archival Intervention
“Untimely Periodicals: Haiti and the Archives of Caribbean Thought”
Speakers: Mehdi Chalmers & Carine Schermann
PhD candidates, Florida State University
This presentation traces the radical intellectual traditions housed in Haitian literary journals across the 20th and 21st centuries—from La Revue Indigène to Trois/Cent/Soixante. These periodicals act as living archives of poetic rebellion, political critique, and Afro-Caribbean imagination.
🥗 12:00 PM – Community Lunch
Enjoy food and informal conversation with presenters and participants.