Tuesday, February 14, 2017

2 CFPs re African languages: Agency & the Production of Knowledge, and Disciplines & Professions (ALDP8)

Here are calls for participation (CFPs) in two more conferences, one at Columbia University in New York in March on "African Languages, Agency, and the Production of Knowledge," and the other being the 8th edition of Harvard University's African Languages in the Disciplines and Professions Conference, to be held in Conakry, Guinea in April. The deadline for both CFPs is 1 March 2017 (apologies for the late notice).

African Languages, Agency, and the Production of Knowledge

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B40qLKz2TAkmVEQwR1hJRlA5SmM/view?usp=sharing

This "mini-conference," to be held on 24-25 March 2017, is jointly sponsored by the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) and the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at Columbia University.

"The main objective ... is to assemble scholars from diverse disciplines and engage them in dialogue on the current  status of African languages as conveyors of knowledge, their relevance in knowledge production and sharing, and their role in the future of knowledge construction." It is also planned to publish the proceedings.

"Some relevant questions to ask include: What has Africa lost due to the disuse of African languages in education? What is the relevance of African languages in knowledge production and sharing? What has been achieved so far towards the development of African languages and indigenous knowledge? What are the future prospects for African languages? How can African languages contribute in the construction of knowledge through literature, translation, poetry, and fiction? And what is the role of African language writers, translators, researchers, and teachers?"

For further details on submissions, click on image for full text of CFP. Abstracts should be submitted by 1 March, to sms2168 (at) columbia (dot) edu.

African Languages in the Disciplines and Professions (ALDP8)


The 8th ALDP conference, to be held on 21-23 April 2017 in Conakry, is the first in the series to take place in Africa. The series is run by the African Language Program at Harvard and co-sponsored by the Department of African and African American Studies and the Harvard Committee on African Studies. This year it is being co-organized with Université Kofi Annan de Guinée.

For a general description and some background, see also last year's post on this blog about ALDP7.

The theme of this year's conference is “Progress of African Languages in Disciplines and Professions.” It is planned that the "plenary sessions will include scholars' and activists' presentations from broad areas of disciplines and professions." They are "seeking scholars to give papers and serve on panels for the conference." "The conference's languages ​​of communication are French, English and African languages."

For further details on submissions, see the ALDP page (which also has versions of the CFP in French and N'Ko). Abstracts should be submitted by 1 March, to harvardalp (at) gmail (dot) com.

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