SOE 2021
Teaching Africa in the World
AAI’s 7th Annual State of Education on Africa Conference on “Teaching Africa in the World” took place virtually on November 5, 2021. The conference explored recovered histories that center the contributions of Africa and its worldwide Diaspora in the making of the modern world.
Virtual Conference
November 13, 2021
Watch the Conference
Conference Speakers
OPENING REMARKS
Kofi Appenteng
President, AAI
Mora Mclean
President emerita, Program Advisor, AAI
Historical Memory and Exclusion of Africa and Blackness from “the Classics“ and “Western Civilization”
This session will illuminate how and why dominant mainstream (white European and American) conceptions of classical antiquity—in pedagogy and popular culture—exclude Africa from (or present it as antithetical to) the Greco-Roman empires, “Western civilization,” and the creation of the modern world.
Lyra Monteiro, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of History and Graduate Program in American Studies, Affiliate Faculty Member, Department of African American and African Studies, Rutgers University-Newark
The Howard School of International Relations and the Racial Foundations of the Discipline
Focusing on the pathbreaking efforts of black intellectuals and scholars at Howard University from the 1920s through the 1950s—a group that included Alain Locke, Ralph Bunche, Merze Tate, E. Franklin Frazier, Rayford Logan, and Eric Williams—this session examines instances of historical erasure and how assumptions of racial hierarchy inspired the creation of international relations as an academic discipline.
Pearl T. Robinson, PhD
Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Africa, and African American Politics, Tufts University
The Hansberry Society: Doing the work to recover, and learn from, the history and legacy of Africa’s ancient past
In this session three members of the Hansberry Society—a trans-continental network of emerging scholars—share the personal journeys and research passions that led to and inspire their ongoing work. They’ll also talk about Society’s mission to make the study of antiquity more inclusive and welcoming to students of African descent, and in doing so open up new vistas.
Debora Heard
Doctoral candidate in Anthropology (Nubian Archaeology), at the University of Chicago, whose research spans the intersection of archaeology, anthropology, Nubiology, Egyptology, and African Studies
Shayla Monroe
Doctoral candidate in Anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), who specializes in faunal analysis, the social zooarchaeology of Sudan and Egypt, the archaeology of ethnicity in the ancient Nile Valley, and African pastoralism
Sewasew Haileselassie Assefa
Bioarchaeologist-biocultural anthropologist and Ph.D. student at Washington University in St. Louis, whose research explores the effects of sociopolitical and economic factors on health and dietary adaptations employed to combat social and environmental stress during the medieval period
Black Students Aren’t Lost – The Question is, Do We See Them?
This conference session will aim to illuminate the transformational potential of centering black students in curricular design and discuss ways to address barriers to developing efficacy in this pedagogical practice.
Jamila Dugan, PhD
Educator, Author, Equity-Centered Leadership Coach
Africa and African Diaspora Centered Teaching and Learning In Action
This is a conversation between the Africa America Institute (AAI) and University Preparatory Charter Schools (U – Prep) in Detroit, Michigan about their collaboration to promote and implement a culturally responsive Africa and African diaspora-centered teaching and learning initiative for student achievement, equity, and justice.
Olivia Lynch, Ed.D
AAI Teaching Africa Program Coordinator/Director
Sharon Hopkins
Director of Curriculum & Instruction, K-12 Social Studies, University Prep Schools