SEALLF Fall 2022 Conference

Friday, November 4 – Saturday, November 5, 2022

Hosted by the UNC Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies and the UNC African Studies Center

Register for the Conference

Friday, November 4, 2022

Venue: Hitchcock Room, the Sonja Haynes Stone Center, UNC-Ch

Welcoming Remarks

Dr. Victoria Rovine
Director, African Studies Center, UNC-Chapel Hill

Dr. Claude Clegg
Chair, Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill

Dr. Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld,
Senior Associate Dean for Social Sciences and Global Programs, UNC-Chapel Hill

Keynote Address: Dr. Esther Lisanza, Howard University; The State of African Languages, Literatures and Global Mobility 

Dr. Esther Mukewa Lisanza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African Studies at Howard University. She is the current president of the Southeast African Languages and Literatures Forum (SEALLF). She holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and an Advanced Certificate in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education (SLATE) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research and publications center on language and literacy development, politics of language in education, African education, and women empowerment in Africa. Lisanza’s latest edited volumes are Gender and Education in Kenya, 2021 and African Languages and Literatures in the 21st Century, 2020 (co-edited). Her latest monograph is The Multivoices of Kenyan Children Learning to Read and Write, 2020. Her forthcoming book is African Languages and Indigenous Knowledge: The Case of Swahili, Kamba, and Kikuyu. She is a trainer and mentor of instructors of less commonly taught languages in higher education.

Moderator: Dr. Mohamed Mwamzandi, UNC-Chapel Hill

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Panel 1: Conceptualizing Mobility in African Contexts and Creativity

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Moderator: Dr. Raphael Birya, UNC-Chapel Hill

Dr. Ajibade George Olusola, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
The Yorùbá Concept of Mobility: Impetus from Language, Literature, and Culture

Dr. Oluwafunke Brinda, Howard University, DC.
The impact of Transatlantic Migration on African Language and Literature

Dr. Anne Jebet, University of Virginia
Language and Migration: A Case Study of African Refugee Immigrants in the US

Dr. Leonard Muaka Howard University, DC
Far from Home but Never Far from Home: Exploring Swahili’s Diasporic Literature

Lunch

Panel 2: Language, Literature, and Decoloniality

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Moderator: Dr. Dainess Maganda

Ms. Naeelah Kamaldien, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Resistance within the literary text: An exploration of Apartheid resistance poetry by South African high school learners

Dr. Adaora Anyachebelu, University of Lagos, Lagos
Language and Creativity in African Literature: A stylistic Examination of Chukuezi’s Udo ka Mma

Ms. Maria Carolina Almeida de Azevedo, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro
Peripheral Women in Brazilian Literature: African Heritage in Verse and Audacity

Ms. Juliet Adaobi Chukwuma and Dr. Martha Michieka, East Tennessee University
Migration and Mental Slavery: A stylistics approach to Adichie’s Americanah and Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy.

Panel 3: Feminist and Counterhegemonic Discourses in Literature

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Moderator: Dr. Leonard Muaka, Howard University, DC

Dr. Anyachebelu, Adaora Lois, and Ms. Uchenna Grace Umeodinka, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Women Self-mortification and Igbo Folktale

Ms. Omolola Giwa and Dr. Martha Michieka, East Tennessee State University
Patriarchy and the Influence of religion on African women as portrayed in Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter 

Mr. Denis Waswa, Louisana State University
Hysteric Rebellion: Resisting Gendered Violence in Post/Colonial Africa

Dr. Mohamed Mwamzandi, UNC Chapel Hill
Africa’s Competitive and Elitist Education System as Depicted in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions

Saturday, November 5, 2022

Panel 4: Proverbs, Festivals, and Kangas as Language Media

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Moderator: Dr. Charles Bwenge, University of Florida

Dr. Geofred Osoro, Boston College
Education and Culture through Swahili Proverbs: Lessons from Indigenous Practices

Ms. Blessing Adedokun-Awojodu, UNC Chapel Hill
A People, Her Values and Her Festival: The Oronna Ilaro Festival

Mr. Nura Abubakar, Ohio University
The Impact of Literal Translation of Proverbs in Shaihu Umar

Dr. Raphael Birya, UNC Chapel Hill
Shaping Swahili Culture through the “Kanga

Panel 5: African Languages in Global Contexts

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Moderator: Dr. Esther Lisanza, Howard University

Dr. Charles Bwenge and Dr. Jessica Mushi, University of Florida and Winston Salem State University
The Future of PALs: Revisiting Bokamba’s Models with special reference to UF & WSSU

Dr. Dainess Maganda, The University of Georgia
Fostering Transnational Identity through Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

Dr. Akinloyè Òjó, University of Georgia
Language, Society, and Empowerment in Africa and Its Diaspora: A Book Presentation

Panel 6: African Cosmopolitanisms in Literature

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Moderator: Dr. Samba Camara, UNC-Chapel Hill

Dr. Esther Mukewa Lisanza, Howard University
Global Mobility and Swahili Literature: The Case of Homa ya Nyumbani

Ms. Adanna L. Ogbonna-Oluikpe, Louisiana State University
How Beautiful We Are: Local Voices, the Afropolitan and Planetary Consciousness

Mr. Damilare Bello, Duke University
In Defense of the ‘Parochial,’ the Incredible, and Vagabonds!

Panel 7: Comparative Reflections on Teaching English in Africa versus Teaching African Languages in America

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Moderator: Dr. Akinloyè Òjó, University of Georgia

Panelists:

1. Charity Fawe (Hausa FLTA, African Studies Institute, UGA)
2. Aishat Aina (Yoruba FLTA, African Studies Institute, UGA)
3. Nichesius Godini (Swahili FLTA, African Studies Institute, UGA)
4. Lindokuhle Sikhonde (Zulu FLTA, African Studies Institute, UGA)
5. Blessing Adedokun-Awojodu (Yoruba FLTA, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Closing Remarks

Dr. Mohamed Mwamzandi
African Languages Coordinator, Department of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, UNC-Chapel Hill

Sponsors

African Studies Center, UNC-Chapel Hill

Center for African Studies, Howard University

African, African American, and Diaspora Studies Department, UNC-Chapel Hill

The Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, UNC-Chapel Hill

Institute for the Arts and Humanities, UNC-Chapel Hill