Abdilatif Abdalla is the best-known Swahili poet and independent Kenya's first political prisoner. He discusses poetry as a political instrument and as an academic field; publication prospects for African poets; and how poetry enabled him to survive three years of solitary confinement, after which he spent 22 years in exile. The interview ends with Abdalla reciting his poem Siwati (I Will Never Abandon My Convictions).

With guest host Ann Biersteker.

Episode 85:

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Peter Mark (Emeritus, Art history, Wesleyan Univ.) on his personal and scholarly journeys through precolonial Mande worlds. He shares insights from decades of experience working with an eclectic range of primary sources and archives. He then discusses the history of a Portuguese Jewish diaspora in Senegal and Afro-European identities. The interview closes with Mark’s preview of his latest research on trade and culture in Casamance and Guinea-Bissau, from the 15th to the 17th centuries.

Episode 133:

Marissa Moorman (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, African Cultural Studies) on Angolan social history and media studies. We discuss the evolving trajectory of her scholarship, research in southern Africa and Portugal, and her latest book, Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931–2002. The interview features a musical interlude (courtesy of Paulo Flores). It closes with insights on Moorman’s public-facing work with Africa Is A Country and provides a sneak peak into her current book project.

Episode 132:

Historian Jessica Marie Johnson (Johns Hopkins Univ.) digs into her award-winning new book, Wicked Flesh: Black Women, Intimacy, and Freedom in the Atlantic World. The conversation brings out how Black women in Senegambia, the Caribbean, and Louisiana devised ways to gain control over parts of their lives and defined freedom for themselves in the age of slavery and the slave trade. The interview closes with Dr. Johnson’s thoughts on LifexCode: Digital Humanities Against Enclosure, which she directs, and on the critical role of ethical collaborative scholarship in academic endeavors.

Episode 131:

Dr. Gerard Akindes discusses his experience playing and coaching basketball in West Africa and Europe, and the new Basketball Africa League. He considers the role of “electronic colonialism” in the sport media landscape and then reflects on his work advancing African scholarship through research publications and through Sports Africa, a coordinate organization of the U.S. African Studies Association that he co-founded in 2004.

Episode 130:

Dr. Chambi Chachage (Princeton) discusses his intellectual journey from Dar es Salaam to Cape Town, Edinburgh, and Cambridge, Mass., his book manuscript on the history of Black entrepreneurs in Dar, and the changing role of digital humanities in the field of African studies. The interview concludes with Chachage’s insights on the controversial recent elections in Tanzania.

Episode 85:

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