Participants from Canada, the African diaspora, and Africa are warmly welcomed and encouraged to join. The conference also seeks to highlight and engage the broader Ottawa community and showcase the exceptional work of students affiliated with the Institute. Notably, we will pay tribute to the late Director, Professor Pius Adesanmi, by featuring an annual memorial keynote in his honor.

We welcome the participation from scholars, early-career professors, university students of various levels, and community researchers or practitioners engaged in African Studies, African Diasporic Studies, or Black Studies!Ěý

Over the years, the festival has, in addition to being a genuinely indispensable biennial exhibition space, become a “locus classicus” of artistic and cultural legitimation; a place of encounter between filmmakers and their audiences; an inspiring lighthouse for cinephilia in Africa; a space for the reinvention of the world according to a principle of proximity irreducible to the play of geopolitics. Indeed, FESPACO is nothing short of a unique laboratory of ideas, where the cultural, the political, the economic and the social find unique modes of mutual articulation and partake in the production of thought and affects about the place of Africa in the world, the ways she sees herself and wishes to project herself.

In an effort to evaluate this major institution, celebrate its uncommon journey and critically examine the festival’s successes and limitations, proposals are now being accepted to create discussions promoting retrospection, stocktaking and future visions by examining, inter alia, the evolving identities of the festival, its role in shaping the destiny of African cinema, its standing relative to the global sphere of film festivals, and indeed, its place in the emerging field of film festival studies.

Proposals are thus sought that might include the following issues:

A. IDENTITY

1. FESPACO as the home of African cinema (is it still the home of African cinema?
2. FESPACO between continentalism and Pan Africanism
3. FESPACO as a mecca of African cinephilia
4. FESPACO and the diaspora: the place of African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-European cinemas at FESPACO
5. FESPACO and the language question: Multilingualism or the legacy of colonial linguistic divide? (Francophones, Anglophones. Lusophones, Arabophones and Africaphones).
6. FESPACO and the politics of gender
7. FESPACO and 20th century history: decolonization; the Cold War; the challenges of post-independent Africa; globalization; apartheid; etc.
8. FESPACO and host country politics

B. SHAPING AFRICAN CINEMA AND MEDIA

1. FESPACO as a “factory” of auteurism in Africa cinema: what kind of auteurism for African cinema? Has FESPACO helped push the boundaries of auteurism, redefined auteurism?
2. The status of popular cinema at FESPACO: Nollywood and its progenies at FESPACO
3. The politics of programming at FESPACO
4. FESPACO and the political economy of African cinema
5. Awards and prizes at FESPACO and the afterlives of African films
6. FESPACO and the emergence and strengthening of national cinemas in Africa
7. The status of television at FESPACO
8. The status of video at FESPACO

C. RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER FESTIVALS AND TO FILM FESTIVAL STUDIES

1. FESPACO in the ecology of African film festivals
2. FESPACO in the global ecology of film festivals (A list film festivals Cannes, Berlinale, Venice, Toronto, etc.)
3. FESPACO as event and the event-ness of FESPACO
4. FESPACO in the political economy of world cinema
5. FESPACO and film markets
6. FESPACO in the age of new and digital technologies and social media: challenges and opportunities?
7. FESPACO and the world of streaming.

Please submit a 200 word abstract, 5 bibliographic sources, 5 keywords, a short professional biography via email to Aboubakar S. SanogoĚý˛ú˛â August 10, 2018.

Email: aboubakar.sanogo@carleton.ca

3rd Annual Institute of African Studies Undergraduate Research Conference
Ottawa, Canada
14th October 2017

Theme: Migrations and Human Rights in Africa and the Diaspora: Vulnerability, Social

Justice, and New Nationalisms

Keynote Speaker: , author of Foreign Gods Inc. and other books

Calling all undergraduate students with a passion for African Studies! The Institute of African Studies (IAS) at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University is hosting its third international undergraduate research conference organized by the (IASSA). The goal of this interdisciplinary conference is to provide a platform for emerging researchers in the field of African Studies. It is understood this may be a student’s first time completing a scholarly paper, therefore the timing of this conference has been chosen to allow time for students to complete research over the summer and to present in October.

This year’s conference seeks to encourage interdisciplinary engagement with a new generation of continental and diasporic Africans confronting questions such as: How are global and intra-continental migration patterns impacting the continent and its diasporas? What can be learned from migrant’s individual agency and what tools do they use to actualize justice and social change? How have the rise of New Nationalisms and a global politics of fear shaped the migrant experience? What does the securitization and militarization of the border mean for fabricated national boundaries on the continent? In a time of increasing consequences of climate change, terrorist regimes, and refugees flow, how do we realize a vision of mobility as a human right? This conference encourages students not to simply regurgitate information obtained from a variety of sources, but also to bring forth new and innovative ideas, be it problem solving or avenues for further research.

Papers must remain within the scope of African Studies and may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Human Rights and development
• Security and migration regulation
• Migration and Identity formation
• Resource extraction, sustainability
• Refugeeism, displacement and border politics
• Youth, Culture, Activism and frameworks of social justice
• New Nationalism, global politics and Africa’s role on the world stage
• Globalization, migrant flows and global integration
• Social, political and economic impacts of migration
• Climate change and its social consequences for migration

We also encourage students coming from the following disciplines: Globalization and International Relations, Policy and Political Science, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Law, Art History, Musicology, Religion, Film Studies, Business and Economics, Media and Communication Studies, Technology, Literature and Critical Studies.

Students interested in participating are invited to submit abstracts by July 1, 2017 to the communications team at: communications.iasconference@gmail.com

Abstracts of between approximately 300 words in length should include the following:

• Name, institution, field of study, address, email and phone number
• The title of your presentation
• A thesis statement, two or more research questions, and a brief description of the argument the paper seeks to make

Research Papers are due September 1, 2017 and must be a minimum of 3000 words.

For participating students, this conference is an excellent opportunity for improving academic portfolios, especially for those interested in future graduate studies or careers that require writing reports or policy papers for government agencies, NGOs, etc.  There will be prizes for the best papers at the conference, including being awarded publication opportunity in Nokoko, the open-access academic journal of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s Institute of African Studies.
The IASSA plans to make this a memorable experience for students by incorporating guest-speakers, cultural components, and an environment that fosters the kind of support and encouragement that undergraduate students treasure. More information on these activities as well as about accommodation, possible travel subsidies, and so forth will be made available in due course to students whose abstracts are accepted.

For more information please email the organizing committee at: communications.iasconference@gmail.com.

Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance of abstracts by July 21, 2017.