Africana Studies in a global perspective

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Students, alumni and scholars will look at “The Place of Africana Studies in a Global Perspective” at Bowling Green State University’s 13th annual Africana Studies Conference on March 18. The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union. The conference and keynote address are free and open to the public.

The conference provides a forum for research that investigates the historical, cultural and intellectual issues of people of African descent globally. Panel discussions will be held from 10-11:45 a.m. and 1-1:45 p.m. in 207 Union on “Africana Histories, Politics and Societies” and Africana Literature, Art and Culture,” respectively. Presenting will be students from BGSU, Kent State University and the University of Michigan, in addition to Africana Studies alumni who now are on the faculties at the University of Akron, Kent State and Georgia State universities.

Dr. Lillian Ashcraft-Eason, a professor emerita of history and founding director of BGSU’s Africana Studies Program, will give the keynote address at 12:30 p.m. during the colloquium luncheon in 228 Union. Registration for the luncheon has ended, but those wishing to attend the keynote address are welcome.

Ashcraft-Eason’s research and teaching focus has been in the fields of African-American, religious and cultural history. She is currently studying cosmological thought among African women in British colonial America. Her most recent publications include an essay on Fenda Lawrence, an 18th-century Gambian woman in the Georgia colony, and an edited collection, “Women and New and Africana Religions” (2009). She is a funding proposal evaluator for the American Council of Learned Societies, and a past president of the Society for the Study of Black Religions. She has received fellowships from such organizations as the Ford Foundation and Fulbright-Hays.

Ashcraft-Eason served as director of the program for more than 10 years and, along with her late husband, Djisovi Eason, instituted the Africana Studies Student Research Colloquium, which has continued to grow and flourish.

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(Posted March 09, 2011 )