Gender, Material Culture, & Culture Diplomacy Conference
October 7-9, 2010
University of Toronto, St George Campus
Program ( minor changes to follow)
Thursday, October 7th 2010
Venue: William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcocks Street, New College
3: 00 pm- 3: 30 pm
3: 30 PM: -4: 30 PM
Welcome remarks
Welcome Professor Yves Roberge, Principal, New College
Dr. Thomas Thieku, Director, African Studies
Professor Bonnie McElhinny, Director, Women & Gender Studies Institute
Conference theme presentation: Marieme Lo, PhD., conference organizer
Imagining, Embodying & Embracing Africa inside -out
Chair: Silvia Forni, PhD., Associate Curator of Anthropology in the Royal Ontario Museum
Mary Hark, Studio Artist, Assistant Professor of Textile Design, Design
Studies Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
SEAM: Mixed Media Textile Paintings a visual consideration of place through the lens of a textile aesthetic
Keli Massud, BFA, Visual Artist, Toronto
A question of Origin
4: 30 PM- 5: 30 PM Re-interpreting culture: the art & possibilities of cultural
diplomacy
Chair: Ato Quayson, Professor, University of Toronto
Speakers
Paula Heinonen, PhD., International Gender Studies Centre, University of Oxford
Defining African Culture in the context of a Globalized World with examples from Ethiopia
Patricia Stamp, Professor Emerita of African Studies and Women’s Studies, York University
Kenya, Kiondos and Cultural Diplomacy: Reviving Kamba Women’s Autonomy
5: 30 PM- 6:30PM Exhibition & Curated event “Embodiment & Visualization of
Material Culture Across Time and Space”
Marieme Lo PhD., Netta Kornberg & Sarah Nesib, University of Toronto
6 :30 PM-7:30 PM Cocktail
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Friday, October 8th 2010
Conference Venue: Hart House, the Music Room, 7 Hart House Circle
9: 00 AM-- 10:00 AM
Keynote
Oyeronke Oyewumi, PhD., Associate Professor of Sociology and Women & Gender Studies, SUNY at
Stony Brook, USA
Beyond Gendercentric Models: Historicizing Identities in Discourses of African
Art and Aesthetics
10: 00 AM -- 11:00 AM Semiotics & deconstruction of material culture
Chair: Professor Eric Jennings, University of Toronto
Speakers
Ato Quayson, Professor of English and Director Center for Diaspora and Transnational Studies,
University of Toronto
Political Semiotics of Dress in West Africa
Soelve Curdts, PhD., Princeton University & Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung,
Germany
The Girl
11:00 AM -- 12:00 PM Material culture: Embodying belonging, resistance &
empowerment
Chair: Professor Thembela Kepe, University of Toronto
Speakers
Gary van Wyk PhD., Curator Axis Gallery, New York
Flying the Flag: Beadwork and Dress Articulating Belonging and Resistance in
South Africa
Samba Gadjigo, PhD., Professor, Mount Holyoke College
The rope and the belt as symbols of rebellion and empowerment in Ousmane Sembene's films and prose fiction
12: 00 PM -- 1: 00 PM Student Luncheon Panel: Fashion’s many faces: Aesthetics,
representation & African spaces
Organized and chaired by: Netta Kornberg & Sarah Nesib, University of Toronto
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1: 00 PM -- 2:00 PM
Material culture: Engaging history & negotiation
change across different temporalities
Chair: Professor Melanie Newton, University of Toronto
Speakers
Ferdinand de Jong, PhD., University of East Anglia, UK
The Material Culture of Slave Trade Commemoration: Dress and Nudity in the Performance of
Reconciliation at Gorée Island, Senegal
Suzanne Gott, PhD., the University of British Columbia Okanagan
Cloth and Beads in Southern Ghana as Sites of Intercultural Engagement and Strategic Interaction
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Gendered technologies & labor: indigenous production &
marketing of material culture
Chair: D. Soyini Madison, Professor, Northwestern University
Speakers
Silvia Forni, PhD., Associate Curator of Anthropology in the Royal Ontario Museum, Department
of World Cultures
Gendered technologies: Continuity and innovation in a Cameroonian pottery tradition
Marieme Lo, PhD.,University of Toronto
Senegalese women traders: embodying a gendered economics of aesthetics & consumption
Laura L. Cochrane, PhD., Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Department of Sociology,
Anthropology, and Social Work, Central Michigan University
Embodying heritage & contemporary community: Weaving in Ndem, Senegal
Coffee Break
3: 00 PM -- 4:00 PM Space, culture and praxis
Chair: Shahrzad Mojab, Professor,University of Toronto
Speakers
D. Soyini Madison, Professor, Northwestern University
Women's Spaces: Tradition, the Body, and Performance as Social Action
Amal Mohammed Hassan Jamal, PhD., McGill University
Kel Azjer Tuareg Culture: Public and Private Space in Ghat
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4: 00 PM - 5:00 PM Reclaiming identity, performing citizenship& negotiating
belonging
Chair: Professor Alissa Trotz, University of Toronto
Speakers
Maimuna Mohamud, M.A. Global Gender Studies, SUNY at Buffalo
New Diasporic Interpretations of the Guntiino: Re-defining Clothing, Re-affirming Identities. Exploring
Memory, Homelands & the Generational Gap among Somali Women in the Diaspora
Angela Washington-Thibodeaux, PhD (ABD), Capella University
In Search of the Black Victorian: Black & the Transnational Phenomena of Skin Bleaching
Jean Mbaga, Lecturer, Dept of History, University of Douala Cameroon & Georges Djatsa Maffo,
Lecturer Dept of Anthropology University of Douala , Cameroon
‘Cloths’ for social distinction in nowadays Bamun Empire
Saturday October 9th 2010
Conference Venue: Hart House, the Music Room
9:00 AM-10:30 AM Symbolism, material expression of piety, & religiosity
Chair: Professor Michael Lambek, University of Toronto
Speakers
Patricia Bentley, Senior Curator at the Textile Museum of Canada
Magic Squares: An Examination of Their Metaphoric Significance in Muslim West African Visual Cultures
Beth A. Buggenhagen, PhD., Assistant Professor of Anthropology Indiana University
Money Takes Care of Shame: Exchange and Value in an Era of Global Volatility in Global Senegal
Elisha P. Renne, Professor, Department of Anthropology and the Center for Afroamerican and
African Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Veils, Gender, and Material Expressions of Piety in Northern Nigeria
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10: 30 AM- 11: 30 AM Fashioning Citizenship, selves & identities
Chair: Professor Dickson Eyoh
Speakers
Jude Fokwang, PhD., Trent University
Fabrics of Identity: Modernity, Women’s Uniforms and Associational Life in Bamenda
Emmanuel Nuesiri, PhD., & Orock Tanye Besong, Cameroon
The Ubiquitous ‘Classless’ CICAM of Cameroon
11: 30 AM
Closing Keynote
Elisha P. Renne, Professor, Department of Anthropology and the Center for Afroamerican and African
Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Discussion
12:00 -1PM Lunch
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