Imagine Euorpe: Black Italians and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Film, Fiction, Music, and Social Media

Antonio Dikele Distefano in conversation with Fred Kuwornu

Tuesday, February 7, 2023 | 12:30-1:45 p.m. | Montezuma Hall

Antonio Dikele Distefano is an Italian writer, producer and filmmaker of Angolan descent, author of five successful young adult novels with combined sales exceeding 500,000 copies. He is the co-creator of the 2021 Netflix series Zero, and the director of the 2022 Amazon Prime film Autumn Beat, both featuring young Black Italian protagonists. An inspiration to many Black Italians, he has pioneered numerous projects in publishing, television, and social media. In 2016 he founded Esse Magazine – the largest and most influential rap publication in Italy today – to showcase Black artists and performers. He owns the communication agency Cantera. With his production company he is developing films that bring Black Italian performers onto the world stage. His mission is to produce quality projects that positively portray underserved communities.

Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Italian filmmaker and producer of Ghanaian descent based in New York. He is the director of Blaxploitalian 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema (2016), 18 IUS SOLI (2011), on the racial prejudices of the Italian citizenship law, and Inside Buffalo (2010), on the 92nd Infantry Division and the contribution of African American soldiers during WWII. He started his film career in 2008 as a production assistant on the set of the film Miracle at St. Anna directed by Spike Lee.

Event organized in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and co-sponsored with IRA funds from the College of Arts and Letters.

MLK Annual Luncheon

The Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Luncheon is Friday, January 20, 2023.

The MLK Committee is planning an exciting celebration that will include great music, inspiring spoken word, delicious food and warm fellowship.  Again, we will present the “Unsung Hero’ award.  Nominations for the “Unsung Hero” award should be sent to Dr. Adisa A. Alkebulan, [email protected], by Friday, November 18, 2022.

The luncheon is a time for re-commitment and reflection.  Join us in honoring Dr. King’s memory and legacy as we re-dedicate ourselves to the principles of “justice and equality for all.”

Contact Kaia Brown at [email protected] or 619-594-5341 to purchase seats or for more information.

 

Celebrating Palmares: Brazilian Black Consciousness Month

Thursday, November 17, 2022 | 12-2pm

@ Black Resource Center
5723 Lindo Paseo, San Diego, Ca 92115

Join Us for The Second Annual Celebrating Palmares
Afro-Brazilian Knowledge, Scholarship, Resistance, and Culture

Live Music and Free Pizza

Also learn more about the summer 2023 Study Abroad Program in Salvador, Bahia
Global Seminar: “Afro-Brazilian Community, Culture, And Identity”

Performance By Raquel Almeida Afro-Brazilian musician and singer

 

EmbarRACEments: African Diaspora and Afrophobia in Italy

Thursday, September 29, 2022
12:30-1:45 p.m.
Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center, Gold Auditorium, SDSU

While Italians supported the Black Lives Matter movement that was born in the United States, many remain blind to the rampant racism in their own society. In Italy there is excessive fear and great aversion to Africans, a condition which the UN and EU refer to as “Afrophobia.”  This is a systemic, endemic phenomenon with multiple origins that contributes to a negative representation and perception of Africa. This view is at the root of racism in Italy, a racism that often expresses itself in the banality of people’s everyday language, micro-aggressions, and hypersexualized approaches toward women.

This presentation includes readings from Kossi Komla-Ebri’s two volumes of personal, ironically humorous anecdotes, translated in English as EmbarRACEments: Daily Embarrassments in Black and White . . . and Color (2019), focusing on issues of inclusivity, racism, and cultural conflict. EmbarRACEments tells the embarrassment of difference, the discomfort related to the Other, the culturally different, and, especially, the visibly different.

Kossi A. Komla-Ebri, born in Togo, is a medical surgeon and award-winning writer who lives near Como, Italy. His publications include Neyla (2002, 2019), translated and published in the USA, his volumes of anecdotes, Imbarazzismi, and Nuovi Imbarazzismi, translated into English (EmbarRACEments 2019), French (Embarracismes-Le racisme au quotidien, 2016) and Arabic (2021). He has recently published two books of fables, Gente udite la mia favola and Le due lezioni (2022), and a collection of short stories Avant que tombe la nuit (2021). The English translation of eleven short stories was published as Home by Bordighera Press in 2022.

He has been invited to speak at numerous conferences in Italy and internationally and has presented at university courses on issues related to Africa, black Italy, integration, interculturalism and migration literature.

Sponsored by the the Department of European Studies, the Center for European Studies, the Italian Program and the Department of Africana Studies with CAL's IRA funds.

Africana Studies @ 50: A Retrospective of Art, Activism, and Scholarship

Visit our 50th Anniversary page for more details.

Ukuphazama iNatali: Bringing Queer and Indigenous Studies Approaches to South African History and Beyond

A Lecture By: T.J. Tallie, University of San Diego

Tuesday, October 11, 2022  2:30-4 p.m.
Gold Auditorium, Donald P. Shiley Bioscience Center

How can critical Indigenous and queer theoretical approaches transform the way we think about colonial history in South Africa (and beyond)?  If settler colonialism itself is presented as a form of orientation, of making a recognizable and inhabitable home space for European arrivals on indigenous land, then native peoples and their continued resistance can serve to ‘queer’ these attempted forms of order.  In such circumstances, the customs, practices, and potentially the very bodies of indigenous peoples can become queer despite remaining ostensibly heterosexual in orientation and practice, as their existence constantly undermines the desired order of an emergent settler state.

T.J. Tallie (he/they) is an Associate Professor of African History at the University of San Diego. He specializes in comparative settler colonial, Indigenous, queer, and imperial history, with a focus in the late nineteenth century. They are the author of "Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa."  Tallie's current research examines the creation and maintenance of settler monogamy across the nineteenth-century Anglophone world in relation to indigenous social formations, including polygamy.  

Sponsored by LGBTQ+ Studies, the LGBTQ Research Consortium, Department of Africana Studies, and Department of History.

 

Black German Women and Intellectual Activism

March 10, 2022, 12:30-1:45pm
Peterson Gym, Room 153

In 1985, Black German men and women united and created a diasporic movement that connected people from across the nation. But Black women were key figures in the movement who helped to determine its cultural, political, and intellectual contours. Specifically, Dr. Florvil examines May Ayim and Ricky Reiser as examples of what she has coined “quotidian intellectuals,” intellectuals who stress the everyday in form and content. These two women, she argues, decolonized German knowledge in ways that made the Black diaspora and Black Germanness legible. Through their intellectual work, these Black German women also made significant epistemic interventions that allowed them to write themselves into German and diasporic history.

Tiffany N. Florvil is an Associate Professor of 20th-century European Women’s and Gender History at the University of New Mexico. She specializes in the histories of post-1945 Europe, the African diaspora, Black internationalism, as well as gender and sexuality. Her award-winning manuscript, Mobilizing Black Germany: Afro-German Women and the Making of a Transnational Movement (University of Illinois Press 2020), offers the first full-length study of the history of the Black German movement of the 1980s to the 2000s.

If you are unable to attend in-person and would like to join virtually, please register for the link. 

Sponsored by the Department of European Studies with CAL IRA funds, the Center for European Studies, the Department of History, Africana Studies and the Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs (IEPA).

 

#JUSTICEFORGARVEY: Redeeming an African Hero: The Life, Legacy, and Exoneration of Marcus Garvey

Thursday, February 3, 2022
12:30-1:45 p.m.
Via Zoom

Please join us for our first Black History month program with Dr. Julius W. Garvey, M.D. 

Surgeon and medical professor Dr. Julius W. Garvey was born on September 17, 1933 in Kingston, Jamaica to Universal Negro Improvement Association founder Marcus Garvey and activist Amy Jacques Garvey. The younger of two sons, Garvey was raised in Jamaica. He graduated from Wolmer's Trust High School for Boys in Kingston in 1950; and then earned his B.S. degree from McGill University in Montréal, Canada in 1957, and his M.D., C.M. degree from McGill University Faculty of Medicine in 1961. Garvey was a certified fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, the American College of Surgeons, the International College of Surgeons, and the American College of Chest Physicians, as well as a diplomat of the Board of Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery, the American Board of Surgery, the American Academy of Wound Management, and the American College of Phlebology. 

Garvey and his wife, Constance Lynch Garvey, have three children: Nzinga, Makeda, and Paul. 

Sponsored by Instructional Related Activities

Please visit the Black Resource Center's page for more Black History Month event information.

 

Celebrating Palmares: Live DJ Set

Live DJ set by DJ Nyack (Emicida/ Discopédia)

Thursday, November 18, 2021
6:00 p.m.

Black Resource Center
5723 Lindo Paseo, SDSU

DJ Set in Honor of Brazilian Black Consciousness Month

Brazilian Food and Dancing

 

Affirmative Action in Brazil: From Quotas for Black Students to Quotas for Public School Students

A lecture by Sales Augusto dos Santos

Thursday, November 18, 2021
4:00 p.m. PST

Join us via Zoom: https://SDSU.zoom.us/j/82855826135

Sales Augusto dos Santos holds a masters degree and doctorate in Sociology from the University of Brasília (UnB)/Brazil and completed post-doctoral research at the Department of African Studies at Brown University (2012-2013) and the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies (DAADS) at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM) (2019-2020). He is currently a Visiting Professor at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), Minas Gerais (MG)/Brazil, as
well as Associate Researcher at the Afro-Brazilian Studies Nucleus (NEAB) of the University of Brasília (UnB)/Brazil. He coordinated the Publications Working Group of the Brazilian Association of Black Researchers (ABPN), from August 2008 to July 2010. He was also one of the Coordinators of the Violência em Manchete Series, from the National Movement of Human Rights (MNDH), from 1998 to 2002. He researches Brazilian race relations, specifically focusing on racial inequalities, affirmative action policies and Black social movements. He has published several books and numerous articles in Brazilian and international academic journals on these topics. He was the first Brazilian academic to receive the Martin Diskin Dissertation Award for best doctoral dissertation from the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), in 2009.

 

Utopia of Freedom in the Americas: Quilombo and Marronage as Forms of Social Organization in the Diaspora

A lecture by Dr. Davi Pereira Junior

September 30, 2021
11:00-12:15 PST

Davi Pereira Junior, Ph.D. was born in the quilombola community of Itamatatiua in the south of the Municipality of Alcântara - Maranhão, Northeast Brazil. He holds a BA in History from the State University of Maranhão UEMA, a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Bahia UFBA, and a PhD in Latin American Studies from University of Texas at Austin. Pereira Junior has been a researcher for New Social Cartography in Brazil since 2005. He has extensive experience in researching and producing cartographies with Peoples and Traditional Communities in Brazil.

This lecture is hosted by Dr. Daniela Gomes’s class, AFRAS 300: Afro-Brazilian Community, Culture, and Identity.

 

The Black Female within the American Healthcare System: A Critical Race Theory Approach

The Department of Africana Studies Presents Black Women's History Month 
Featuring Kamala Gipson-McElroy DNP, APRN, CPNP-PC Doctor of Nursing Practice Certified Pediatric Nurse Practitioner

Tuesday, March 16th @ 10am

Dr. Gipson McElroy will be utilizing The Critical Race Theory framework to discuss the Black woman’s presence in the American healthcare system as patient and provider. Specifically, she discusses the historical trauma to the black female body, implications of white supremacy on health outcomes among Black women, and Black representation in areas of healthcare decision making.

Dr. Kamala Gipson-McElroy is a board-certified pediatric nurse practitioner prepared and who manages the health and wellness of the children in South Los Angeles. She is passionate about ensuring health equity among all children, children of color specifically, and black children especially, and mentoring the providers that also take care of them.

Dr. Gipson-McElroy has served medically underserved children in South Los Angeles for 15-years. She was recently appointed to leadership as manager of the advanced practice providers in ambulatory care at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Early this year Dr. Gipson-McElroy entered the virtual space, as the creator and writer of the blog “Where All The Children Are Well,” where she provides weekly evidence-based pediatric health information and topics surrounding health-care that can inform parents’ decisions regarding their children’s health.

Dr. Gipson-McElroy is a proud SDSU Africana-Studies alumna! She describes her studies and time in Africana-Studies as “life-changing.” After earning her Bachelor of Arts in Africana Studies, she went on to earned her registered nursing degree. Soon following she became a 3-time alumna from the UCLA School of Nursing holding a Bachelor (2010), and Master of Science in Nursing (2012), and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (2020). Her doctoral scholarly project focused on assisting pediatric providers with optimal assessment and documentation of ADHD symptoms among children utilizing an electronic health record mechanism. She was also inducted into Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honor Society for leadership in 2019.

Dr. Gipson-McElroy is the wife of Corey and the mama to Christian (15) and Mackenzie (6). On a regular day you can find her reading with a cup of coffee, or in her urban garden listening to 90s R&B.

Sponsored by: Instructional Related Activities

 

Black History Month

The Department of Africana Studies is proud to bring you the following programs with an emphasis on Black men.

Black Film Fridays

The Black Fatherhood Project by Jordan Thierry

Friday, February 5, 5-8 p.m. (Film Screening from 5-7 followed by Q and A with director)

In The Black Fatherhood Project, filmmaker Jordan Thierry leads viewers through an honest and essential exploration of fatherhood in Black America, providing historical context and conversation for an issue at the core of the Black experience today. The information is timely, relevant, and is critical for addressing fatherhood in the African-American community.

Jordan Thierry is the Founder and Creative Director of Dream Chase Media LLC, a multimedia production company that uses culture, creativity and community as inspirations for compelling storytelling. His book A KIDS BOOK ABOUT SYSTEMIC RACISM was selected by Oprah for her 2020 best holiday gifts collection. His first feature film, THE BLACK FATHERHOOD PROJECT received wide community acclaim for its breakdown on the history of the Black family. Jordan is a graduate of University of Oregon and Howard University, and has worked as an educator, philanthropic consultant, lobbyist, and independent filmmaker. He is a proud board member of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center.

Fences by August Wilson starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davi

Friday, February 19, 5-8 p.m.

Fences; Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) makes his living as a sanitation worker in 1950s Pittsburgh. Maxson once dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player but was deemed too old when the major leagues began admitting black athletes. Bitter over his missedopportunity, Troy creates further tension in his family when he squashes his son's (Jovan Adepo) chance to meet a college football recruiter.

King in the Wilderness

Friday, February 26, 5-8 p.m.

King in the Wilderness chronicles the final chapters of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life, revealing a conflicted leader who faced an onslaught of criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. While the Black Power movement saw his nonviolence as weakness, and President Lyndon B. Johnson saw his anti-Vietnam War speeches as irresponsible, Dr. King’s unyielding belief in peaceful protest became a testing point for a nation on the brink of chaos.

All movies presented via Zoom.

Sponsored by Instructional Related Activities and a joint effort with Umoja at San Diego City College.

The Sight and Sound of Black Manhood

Wednesday, February 10th from 10-11 a.m.
Join us via Zoom on 2/10

A presentation by Serie McDougal a professor in the Department of Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles

This presentation will explore the bridges and barriers to understanding and perceiving the lives of Black men and boys. It will describe the rationale and approach to developing the recently published book: Black Men's Studies. Particular attention is given to how advancing the life chances of Black men, benefits Black families and communities.

Serie McDougal, III is a professor in the Department of Pan African Studies, California State University, Los Angeles. He received his B.S. in sociology from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. Additionally, he has an MA in Africana studies from the State University of New York at Albany, NY, and a PhD. in African American Studies from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA. Serie McDougal is also the co-director of the Afrometrics Research Institute.

Sponsored by Instructional Related Activities

Live Above the Hype: The experiences and social realities faced by young black men in the 21st century

Wednesday, February 24th from 10-11 a.m.
Join us via Zoom on 2/24

In this presentation, Mr. Vallatine will discuss the value systems versus the perceived behavior in the Hip Hop, young Black male culture and what educators and other youth-serving providers should know. 

Training consultant, K-Rahn Vallatine, works with school teachers, psychologists, and other youth service professionals to strengthen their insight and skillset in
trauma informed youth engagement. Throughout the years, Vallatine has served as a school teacher, sat on a charter school’s Board of Directors, and has years of experience working in Los Angeles’ juvenile halls and juvenile detention camps. Mr. Vallatine is an alumnus of SDSU and was a double major in Africana Studies and Sociology.

Sponsored by Instructional Related Activities

 

Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon

The Department of Africana Studies Presents:
Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon

Friday, January 25, 2019

Cost: $50 per person, $400 per table (seats 8), $500 sponsorship

Please contact Kaia Green with any questions at ext. 5341.

Filming the Female Immigrant Experience in Europe: Screening of Ibi (2017) by Andrea Segre and Q&A with the director 

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Ibitocho Sehounbiatou (Ibi) took pictures and filmed her life in Italy for over 10 years. This film is born from her images, her creativity and her energy. The film is entirely based on the self-narration, direct and spontaneous, made by an immigrant woman telling about herself and about her Europe to her sons in Africa. This is an intense and intimate journey into the difficult, lively and colorful world of a visual artist.

Ibi was born in Benin in 1960. In 2000 she decided to take a big risk in order to give her three children a better future. She left them with her mother and accepted to transport some drug from Nigeria to Italy – but she didn’t succeed. She spent three years in jail in Naples. Once released she stayed in Italy, unable to see her children and her mother for 15 years. In Italy, she became a photographer and started to film her life in order to make them understand what it was like. She described her life and her house in Castel Volturno, where she lived with her new companion, Salami, and Italy where she tried to get her dignity and hope back. This film was made starting from the images Ibi shot.

Andrea Segre returns to SDSU with a powerful new documentary. Segre is an award-winning director of films and documentaries for cinema and television. His filmmaking is concerned primarily with issues of migration and human rights. Among his documentaries are South of Lampedusa (2006), Like A Man on Earth (2008), and Closed Sea (2012). His feature films include Shun Li and the Poet (2011), First Snowfall (2013) and The Order of Things (2017). He is also a researcher in Sociology of Communication and the founder of the association ZaLab, which develops collaborative productions and participatory video workshops.

Co-sponsored with the Department of European Studies, the Italian Studies Program, Circolo italiano, Le Cercle Français, the Center for European Studies, the Department of Women’s Studies, the College of Arts and Letters, and the San Diego Italian Film Festival

New Article Published

Congratulations to Dr. Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers whose new article,  Not a Trophy Wife: (Re) Interpreting the Position held by Queens of Kemet during the new kingdom as a political seat, has been published in the Journal of Black Studies Vol 49, Issue 7, pp. 647 – 671.

Diop Conference 2018

Faculty from Africana Studies will present at the 30th Annual Cheikh Anta Diop International Conference, October 12 and 13, 2018, at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.  Presentations will include:

• “Black Student mothers: A culturally relevant exploratory study” - Dr. Sureshi Jayawardene
• “An examination of post-Obama African American leadership: A Reckoning” -  Dr. Adisa Alkebulan
• “(RE)Turn to the Feminine Divine to Increase the Power vested in Black Womanhood: A Mandate for Strengthening African Agency” -  Dr. Antwanisha Alameen-Shavers

Spare the Child: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America

Wednesday, February 21, 2018

A Lecture by Dr. Stacey Patton

Raised by abusive adoptive parents and shuttled from numerous foster homes and youth shelters throughout the State of New Jersey, Dr. Patton is now an award-winning journalist, author, historian, college pro-fessor, motivational speaker and passionate children’s advocate.

This event is sponsored by The Department of Africana Studies, Student Affairs, The Office of Special Projects in the College of Education, The School of Social Work, The Department of Child and Family Development, the Community Based Block Program, and the Departments of Women's Studies and Chicana/Chicano Studies the Cultural Competency Minor. The event is also supported by Student Success Fees.

Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon

The Department of Africana Studies Presents:
Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon

Friday, January 19, 2018

Please contact Kaia Green with any questions at ext. 5341.