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TZID:Europe/Vienna
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BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:291@antirassismustage.at
DTSTART:20261027T160000Z
DTEND:20261027T180000Z
DTSTAMP:20260722T125731Z
URL:https://antirassismustage.at/events/josephine-soliman-lecture-2026-in-
 african-studies/
SUMMARY:First Annual Josephine Soliman Lecture in African Studies - Profess
 or Akosua Adomako Ampofo in Vienna
DESCRIPTION:Cross-Examining Epistemic Violence and Working Towards Epistemi
 c Freedom: Racing and UnRace-ing the Academy\nInspired by Josephine Solima
 n’s protest against the public display of her father Angelo Soliman’s 
 remains and her demands for a dignified burial for him\, in this lecture I
  seek to exhume African Studies from caricature — not for re-burial\, bu
 t reconfiguration. The discipline has had diverse historical\, political a
 nd epistemological fortunes and I will synthesize my thoughts from the las
 t several years on the now very popular (albeit by no means new) decoloniz
 e project\, to reflect on how\, given contemporary geo-politics\, the inte
 nsely political project of knowledge production can provide epistemic free
 dom and intellectual sovereignty for “African knowers” and why this is
 \nimportant for scientific knowledge production.\nTo do this\, we must con
 front race unapologetically. The academy has often treated matters of race
  as acute — say\, when student movements have demanded we decolonise the
  academy\, or around questions of hiring “minorities”. As soon as thes
 e matters are presumably attended to\, there is a return to chronic invisi
 bility. Furthermore\, insufficient attention has been paid to analysing ho
 w scientific enquiry even today\, such as methodologies\, epistemologies\,
  partnerships\, and academic rankings are racialized and lead to erasures 
 or misrepresentations. In my talk I will illustrate some of these conditio
 ns and suggest why “raceing” the academy — i.e. seeing race — and 
 then “unracing” — i.e dismantling racialised structures — is impor
 tant for how we can ultimately make the higher education space safer\, fre
 er\, and more productive for us all. At its core\, reconfiguring African S
 tudies implies exhuming the corpse\, then unsettling what constitutes know
 ledge\, its measurement\, and dissemination\, to challenge oppressive orth
 odoxies.\nWho is Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo ?\nAkosua Adomako Ampofo 
 is an Emerita Professor of African and Gender Studies at the Centre for Ge
 nder Studies and Advocacy\, University of Ghana (UG)\, where she was found
 ation Director from 2005-2010 and from 2010-2015 Director of the Institute
  of African Studies at UG. Her work examines the politics of knowledge (pr
 oduction)\; gender relations\; and masculinities. Adomako Ampofo’s work 
 integrates critical theory with artistic expressions\, highlighting the tr
 ansformative power of the arts in advocating for marginalized voices and h
 ealing and justice work. In 2022 she co-produced the award-winning documen
 tary When Women Speak with Kate Skinner\, directed by Aseye Tamakloe. She 
 has been a Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio centre\; a Me
 llon Fellow at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape To
 wn and a three-time Fulbright Scholar. In 2024 she co-founded 715House Pro
 ductions Ltd.\, dedicated to reshaping narratives about (global) Africa th
 rough storytelling.\n\n	More about Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo on her 
 Official Webpage\n
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CATEGORIES:Vortrag
LOCATION:Universität Wien - Institut für Afrikawissenschaften\, Spitalgas
 se 2\, Wien\, Wien\, 1090\, Österreich
X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=Spitalgasse 2\, Wien\, Wien
 \, 1090\, Österreich;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Universität Wien - Insti
 tut für Afrikawissenschaften:geo:0,0
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