PBS: Escaping Eritrea … [Read More...] about ካብ ውሽጢ ቤት ማእሰርታት ኤርትራ
INSIGHT
The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife
Ariel Sabar | July/August Issue | The Atlantic A hotly contested, supposedly ancient manuscript suggests Christ was married. But believing its origin story—a real-life Da Vinci Code, involving a Harvard professor, a onetime Florida pornographer, and an escape from East Germany—requires a big leap of faith. On a humid afternoon this past November, I pulled off Interstate 75 … [Read more...] about The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife
Why it is crucial to locate the ‘African’ in African Studies
Robtel Neajai Pailey, Senior Researcher, University of Oxford | June 14, 2016 | The Conversation Africans have always produced knowledge about Africa. Their contributions have in some cases been “preferably unheard”. In others they’ve been “deliberately silenced”. So what constitutes an “African” in the heyday of multiple citizenships and transnational flows of … [Read more...] about Why it is crucial to locate the ‘African’ in African Studies
Tim Wigmore | 26 May 2016 | The New Statesman Why Britain’s Bangladeshis are so successful In an age of fear about immigration, the success of the Bangladeshi population in Britain has a deeper resonance. No day is complete without fears about immigrants failing to integrate in Britain. Romanians, Bulgarians and Syrians are among the ethnic groups now seen to … [Read more...] about
Revisiting Frantz Fanon: memories and moments of a militant philosopher
May 25, 2016 |The Conversation A new book by Leo Zeilig focuses on one of Africa and the modern era’s most celebrated revolutionaries, whose views remain influential long after his death. This is an edited extract. Many people spoke well that day. Delegates had come from across the African continent to independent Ghana for the All-African Peoples’ Conference in … [Read more...] about Revisiting Frantz Fanon: memories and moments of a militant philosopher
What the untold Soviet history of “Red Africa” reveals about the racism of modern Russia
Anoosh Chakelian | 4 March 2016 | The New Statesman Artists are attempting to resurrect a piece of cultural history that has been buried, but also highlight the difficulty experienced by black people in Putin’s Russia. Modern Russia has a reputation for being racist. And for good reason. The number of racist acts committed by Russian football fans doubled last … [Read more...] about What the untold Soviet history of “Red Africa” reveals about the racism of modern Russia
The Sixties and Red Africa: the decade of searching for African utopias
Gerard McCann | April 21, 2016 | The Conversation Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba was a celebrity in Yugoslavia. Lumumba’s execution in 1961 caused such outrage that the Belgian embassy in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade was ransacked. Yugoslav leader Josip Tito was himself a regular visitor to Africa – he went to Gamal Abdel Nasser’s … [Read more...] about The Sixties and Red Africa: the decade of searching for African utopias
Reclaiming Africa’s history of economics
Trudi Makhaya | 12 April 2016 | Business Day DURING my undergraduate years in the late ’90s, unlike many commerce students majoring in economics, I took a few economic history courses. African economic history did not feature much in the curriculum. Some of what was there, such as the characterisation of lobolo as a fundamentally economic exchange for reproductive labour, … [Read more...] about Reclaiming Africa’s history of economics
What Did Jesus Do?
Adam Gopnik | May 24, 2010 Issue | The New Yorker Reading and unreading the Gospels. When we meet Jesus of Nazareth at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, almost surely the oldest of the four, he’s a full-grown man. He comes down from Galilee, meets John, an ascetic desert hermit who lives on locusts and wild honey, and is baptized by him in the River Jordan. If one thing … [Read more...] about What Did Jesus Do?
How Adults Can Encourage Kids To Be Original Thinkers
Elissa Nadworny | March 12, 2016 | NPR When I first read Originals I couldn't help but take notes. What I jotted down was essentially a to-do list for how I could be more creative, how I could think up and then communicate new ideas. But the book — written by Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania — is not just a guide for adults. … [Read more...] about How Adults Can Encourage Kids To Be Original Thinkers
Learn Different: Silicon Valley disrupts education.
Rebecca Mead | March 7, 2016 Issue | THE NEW YORKER Seen from the outside, AltSchool Brooklyn, a private school that opened in Brooklyn Heights last fall, does not look like a traditional educational establishment. There is no playground attached, no crossing guard at the street corner, and no crowd of children blocking the sidewalk in the morning. The school is one floor … [Read more...] about Learn Different: Silicon Valley disrupts education.