Africa Past and Present is co-hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb and produced by Matrix.

Episode 56 features Dr. Gary Morgan, Michigan State University Museum Director, on African masks and the Great Dance (Gule Wamkulu) in Chewa society, Malawi. He discusses the origins and characters of Gule Wamkulu, and gender, political, educational and health aspects of masks and their future in a globalizing world. This podcast accompanies the MSU Museum exhibition on masks and the first major book on Gule Wamkulu with Claude Boucher of the Kungoni Centre of Culture and Art, Mua, Malawi.

Photo: Greya character (copyright Gary Morgan)

Matrix is pleased to report the recent presentation of “Podcasting the Past: Africa Past and Present and (South) African History in the Digital Age” by Peter Alegi, Michigan State University historian and co-host of the Matrix produced podcast Africa Past and Present. This presentation was part of the 23^rd biennial meeting of the Southern African Historical Society, which took place from June 27-29, 2011, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

 Reflecting on several years’ experience hosting Africa Past and Present, “Podcasting the Past” explores the role of podcasting in the production and dissemination of historical knowledge about Africa and South Africa in a global context.  Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources, the paper examines technical aspects, issues of audience and access across the digital divide, podcasting as a new form of scholarly publishing, and the impact of podcasting on teaching about Africa. Africa Past and Present represents an unusual example of changing trends in the academic disciplines of history and area studies in the digital age; shows feature interviews with eminent scholars and persons, commentary on current events, and issues and debates of relevance to Africans at home and abroad, all seeking to broaden the availability and accessibility of cutting-edge knowledge relating to African experiences. The paper concludes that podcasting can be a powerful technological tool with which to democratize knowledge, enrich classroom learning, and propel the “increasing incorporation of ‘Africa’ and ‘Africans’ within the new streams of academic and even popular discourse.” 

 Africa Past and Present is co-hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb and produced by Matrix. An online digital archive of all shows, as well as links to multimedia resources and collections of relevance to African experiences can be found at http://afripod.aodl.org/.

Africa Past and Present is co-hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegiand Peter Limb and produced by Matrix.

Episode 55 features Derek Peterson (University of Michigan) on the politics and practice of archives in East Africa, the precarious state of some archives, and exciting possibilities of preservation and digitization at Mountains of the Moon University in Uganda; “homespun” historians in Recasting the African Past and Mau Mau prisons in Kenya; and his forthcoming book Pilgrims & Patriots: Conversion, Dissent, & the Making of Civil Societies in East Africa.

MATRIX is pleased to announce the launch of a new website, Everyday Islam in Kumasi: Devout Lay Men and Women in Daily Life.

This growing collection of video interviews and photographs features the voices of Muslim men and women who live and work in Kumasi, the second largest city in the West African country of Ghana. Interviewees reflect on the ways Islam influences their activities at home, with their neighbors, and at work as traders, tailors, and teachers.  Gracia Clark, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, who made her field research freely accessible on this site, hopes this collection will contribute towards better understanding between Ghanaian Muslims and their neighbors in North America and in Africa.

Everyday Islam in Kumasi is part of the Diversity and Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa digital library.  Each collection in this digital library sheds much-needed light on how Muslims in West Africa accept religious difference and create productive interactions among Christians, Muslims, and followers of other faiths.

Funding for this project is provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program and by Michigan State University.

Africa Past and Present is co-hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb and produced by Matrix.

This fiftieth episode marks over three years of a podcast that is now downloaded monthly by nearly 20,000 listeners in over 80 countries. Matrix is proud to be part of such an ongoing success, and hopes the show continues to expand in scope and audience.

Horace Campbell

Episode 50: Political Change in Africa and the Diaspora is now live at http://afripod.aodl.org

Horace Campbell (African American Studies and Political Science, Syracuse U.) on political change in Africa and the Diaspora. Focus is on the revolution in Libya, popular revolts, war, peace, and neo-liberalism in Africa and beyond. Campbell also shares insights from his new book: Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA.

Africa Past and Present is hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb and produced by Matrix.

Historian Paul Landau (University of Maryland) on rethinking the broad history of Southern Africa from 1400 to 1948. His new book re-asserts African agency by seeing Africans in motion, coming out of their own past. Drawing on oral traditions, genealogies, 19th-century conversations, and other sources, Landau highlights the resilience of African political cultures and their adeptness at incorporating diverse peoples.

Africa Past and Present is hosted by Michigan State University historians Peter Alegi and Peter Limb and produced by Matrix.

In this episode, Prof. Terence Ranger (Emeritus, University of Oxford) discusses his many contributions to African Studies and African History, how these themes have developed, and also his 17th book, Bulawayo Burning (2010). This is the first of three podcasts recorded at the‘Making History: Terence Ranger and African Studies’ conference, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign October, 2010.

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In conjunction with the Department of History at Michigan State University, MATRIX conducted a three-day training workshop and nearly one week post-workshop consulting at the National Records Service in Banjul, The Gambia.  Professor Walter Hawthorne, Chair of the Department of History; Scott Pennington, Head of Digitization at MATRIX; and Bala Saho, The Gambia’s Director General of the National Counsel for Arts and Culture, coordinated with local archive staff to assess and begin preservation and digitization of important 19th century government records.

This work is made possible by generous funding from the Endangered Archives Program at the British Library, and was featured on The Gambian Television and Radio Services News Broadcast.

Partnering with the Department of History at Michigan State University, MATRIX will be consulting at the archives of the Department of State for Justice in Banjul, The Gambia later this summer.  Professor Walter Hawthorne from MSU History, Scott Pennington, head of digitization at MATRIX, and Ph.D. Candidate Bala Saho will coordinate with local archive staff to assess and begin preservation and digitization of important 19th century government records. This work is made possible by generous funding from the Endangered Archives Program at the British Library.