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Symposium on Africology

The Symposium on Africology, which is held just about every four or five years, brings together a number of renown scholars in the field to address issues germane to the discipline of africology. The first symposium was held in April 1987 and was designed to articulate the subject matter of the discipline of africology. The second symposium, held in June 1991, was devoted to the institutional and other implications of renaming the department from "Afro-American Studies" to "Africology." The third symposium was held in April 1997. It focused on the development of a Ph.D. program in africology. The most recent symposium, the fourth, was held in April 2000. Speakers reflected on the four fields of concentration proposed for the anticipated Ph.D. program in Africology.

The Fourth Symposium on Africology

Frontiers of Knowledge and Research in Africological Scholarship

April 20 - 22, 2000
Hefter Conference Center
3271 North Lake Drive

TOPICS

Political Economy and Public Policy: "Isms" Since the Boundary of Bondage in the New World

Comparative Cultures: Africa and the African Diaspora

Science, Technology, and Social Change in the Information and Post-Information Ages

Urban and Rural Environments: Costs and Benefits of Globalization

World Affairs: The Repositioning of Africa in the Twenty-first Century

Localities and Communities: Fostering and Sustaining Strong Families and Schools

Elements of the Topics

Political Economy and Public Policy: "Isms" Since the Boundary of Bondage in the New World

  1. The Concepts of Political Economy and Public Policy
    • Crucial defining attributes of political economy and public policy
    • Problems of universality and particularity in the conceptualization of political economy and public policy
  2. The Boundary of Bondage and its Significance
    • The fifteenth century and the rise of New World Slavery
    • The emergence of patterns in political economy and public policy in slave societies
  3. The Rise and Impact of ""Isms"" on Africa and the African Diaspora: Liberalism, Capitalism, Colonialism, Imperialism, Socialism, Fascism, Nationalism, and Pan-Africanism
    • Liberal politics and capitalist economics in the New World enslavement of Africans
    • The post-slavery world: colonialism and imperialism in relation to public policy grounded in the political economies of capitalism, socialism, and fascism
    • Pan-Africanism in the context of the political economies of capitalism and socialism
    • African national -"isms" in the context of the political economies of capitalism and socialism
    • Constraints and possibilities of contemporary "Isms" in political economy and public policy vis-à-vis Africa and the African Diaspora
  4. New Concepts in Political Economy and Forms of Public Policy
    • Crucial defining attributes of new conceptions of political economy and public policy
    • Redesigning the relation between high material production and broad, equitabledistribution and consumption
    • Political participation and the formulation of economic choices
    • The nexus of political capital and economic capital in a world of economically porous borders
    • The politics and economics of the use of natural resources in the satisfaction of societal needs and wants
    • The politics and economics of the replacement of natural resources by artificial resources in the satisfaction of societal needs and wants

Comparative Cultures: Africa and the African Diaspora

  1. A conceptual framework for a comparative analysis of cultures
  2. African religious beliefs and their New World manifestations
  3. The social significance of African religious retention and extinction in the Americas
  4. African language patterns and their socio-historical relevance in the Americas
  5. The Trans-cultural impact of language patterns and religious practices in the Americas on African societies and cultures
  6. Varieties of African art and literature and their New World significance
  7. New World art and literature and their impact on African societies and cultures
  8. The use of language, religion, art, and literature to position societies in Africa and the African Diaspora to meet critical challenges of the twenty-first century

Science, Technology, and Social Change in the Information and Post-information Ages

  1. Crucial concepts in science and technology at the outset of the twenty-first century
  2. Africans and their descent in science and technology in a world of increasing displacement of natural materials by virtual materials
  3. Techno-biology and the rise of artificially engineered and manipulated life forms
  4. The reconstruction of jobs and work in the age of techno-biology and virtual materials
  5. The impact of techno-biology and virtual materials on labor markets and the role of Africans and their descent in them
  6. Adaptations of Africans and their descent in a world of increasingly marginalized human labor-power
  7. Prognoses concerning Africans and their descent in the age of techno-biology and virtual materials

Urban and rural Environments: Costs and Benefits of Globalization

  1. The concept of globalization
  2. Stratifications in wealth and poverty along the North-South divide globally
  3. Problems of local production in the face of global competition
  4. The cultural and societal costs and benefits of cheap foreign imports
  5. Problems and prospects of rural development in an age of globalized cities
  6. Hegemonic cities of the North and dependent cities of the South in the age of globalization

World Affairs: The Repositioning of Africa in the Twenty-first Century

  1. Leadership and the construction of a confederated states of Africa
  2. The establishment of popularly elected and stable governments
  3. The formation of continental bargaining/negotiating units to promote multi-country interests
  4. The use of public policy to foster nutritional, health, and educational self-sufficiency
  5. The development, sharing, and use of natural resources to enhance human capital, the building
    6. of infrastructure, and the creation of wealth throughout the continent
  6. The construction of a confederated foreign and defense policy
  7. The institution of a common continental currency

Localities and Communities: Fostering and Sustaining Strong Families and Schools

  1. The concepts family, school, and community
  2. The relation between family, school, and community
  3. The role of values in the nurture of families and schools, and the preservation of communities
  4. African retention and extinction in African-American families
  5. The concept of school and the African-American quest for knowledge
  6. The role of public and private schools in African-American education
  7. Developing and maintaining family- and school-friendly public policies
  8. Public policy and self-help vis-à-vis African-American families, schools, individuals, and communities

The Third Symposium on Africology

Africology: Design for a Ph.D. Program
A Conceptual Framework for Instruction

April 17 - 19, 1997
Hefter Conference Center
3271 North Lake Drive

TOPICS

The Scope of Africology

Methods of Africology

Comparative Continental Political Economies

The Political Economy of a State or Region

Transgenerational Memories, Traditions, and Institutions Behavioral Patterns in the Afroworld

Race and Gender: Comparative Analysis of Culture and Identity Formation in Historical Perspective

An Era of Reaction: The Role of Africological Scholarship

Elements of the Topics

The Scope of Africology

  1. Ancient (earliest times to 323 B.C. - Alexander's death)
    • The African origins of Homo sapiens sapiens
    • The rise of the Nile Valley and other African civilizations
  2. Post-Ancient (323 B.C. to 600 A.D. - the beginnings of Islam)
    • The Maghreb, the Nile Valley, Zimbabwe and other African kingdoms
    • Africa, Asia and Europe: Trans-continental transactions, exchanges and conflicts
  3. Pre-Modern (600 A.D. to 1600?the demise of the Great West African Kingdoms)
    • Islamic transformation of the Nile Valley and the Maghreb
    • West and other African Kingdoms
    • Trans-Saharan trade and African relations with Europe and Asia
    • African transoceanic navigation (Indian Ocean, Atlantic Ocean)
  4. Modern (1600- mid 1900s- the end of the Industrial Age)
    • Trans-Atlantic slave trade through the end of colonialism
    • Trans-Arabian slave trade
    • Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas: Development and underdevelopment
  5. Contemporary (mid-1900s to the Information Age)
    • The North-South Divide: From relevance in the Industrial Age to irrelevance in the Information Age (labor, resources, geopolitics)
    • Race, Ethnicity and Nationalism
    • Transnational conflict and cooperation
Methods in Africology
  1. The epistemology of method and technique
  2. Approaches, conceptual frameworks, hypotheses, theories, paradigms
  3. Normative and empirical theory, descriptions, explanations, evaluations, predictions
  4. Classification of extant methods and techniques in africology
  5. Criteria for choice among competing methods and techniques in africology

Comparative Continental Political Economies

  1. The idea of political economy: Conceptual, logical, and empirical relations between politics and economics
  2. The cultural foundations of political economy
  3. Varieties of political economies: Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas compared
  4. The evolution and role of supranational organizations in national economies

The Political Economy of a State or Region

  1. The state or region in an historical context
  2. Economic transformation: Location in the Agrarian, Industrial, and Information Ages
  3. Political development and underdevelopment
  4. External conditionalities and domestic structural adjustments
  5. Social class and public policy

Transgenerational Memories, Traditions, and Institutions: Behavioral Patterns in the Afroworld

  1. Concepts/ideas of transgenerational memory, tradition, and institution
  2. The roles of transgenerational memories, traditions, and institutions in structuring patterns of behavior
  3. Major transgenerational memories: Slavery, colonialism, political independence, ethnic rivalries, ancestral reverence, and the search for grand memories
  4. Major traditions: Kingship/queen ship, religious beliefs, extended families and quasikin relationships, oral transmission of knowledge and systems of belief, rites of passage and the sanctification of learning, music and dance in the organization of social life
  5. Major institutions: Markets, transactions and exchanges; the state and society? exercises of official and unofficial power and authority; the military/police in the context of security, repression, and oppression; the church in relation to leadership, persuasion, resources, and mobilization; the family vis-d-vis networks of support
  6. Patterns of Behavior: Sacrifice, struggle, striving purpose, social and material investment; conspicuous consumption, social parasitism and self?aggrandizement; prosocializations/child?centeredness; the imprimatur of the spoken word as a validation of behavior

Race and Gender: Comparative Analysis of Culture and Identity Formation in Historical Perspective

  1. Paradigms for developing gendered/feminist analysis
  2. Historicizing ideas about race and gender cross?culturally
  3. Comparative approaches to issues of representation and identity
  4. Transcultural analysis of gendered repression, oppression, and resistance
  5. Viewing the politics of race, class, and gender within a time perspective

An Era of Reaction: The Role of A fricological Scholarship

  1. The nature of late twentieth century societal reaction
  2. Antecedents and precipitants of reaction
  3. Empirical instantiations of reaction
  4. Generalizable patterns of reaction
  5. Memory, method, and technique in the design and implementation of social change
  6. Towards a concept of a good society

The Second Symposium on Africology

Symposium Program

June 13 - 15, 1991

TOPICS

Cultural Africology

Political Economy

Africological Theory

Africological Methods

Africology and Ethical Discourse

Africological Literatures

Societies and Civilizations