Dr. Abebe Zegeye
Affiliated Scholar
2005-

Abebe Zegeye, (Ph.D, Oxford University) Professor of Sociology, University of South Africa, and Director of the Unviersity of South Africa Press (UNISA) has joined the Center for Black Diaspora as an Affiliated Scholar. Professionally, his previous experiences include the following: Director, Center for Modern African Studies, University of Warwick; Director, Oxford Centre for African Studies; Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame, London campus; as well as visiting Professor at the Univesity of California, Santa Barbara.

Professor Zegeye has authored and co-authored many books on identity, media, race, migration, environmental issues, democracy and human rights. He has also published numerous chapters, articles and review essays. He is the co-founder and co-editor of "African Identities."

This year Professor Zegeye along with Dr. Fassil Demissie, Public Policy Studies and the Center for Black Diasproa, organized several activities in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of democracy in South Africa, which included films, book exhibit, "Imagined South Africa" - featuring several recently published books on issues in contemporary South Africa by UNISA Press, two photo exhibits - "Amulets and Dreams" during the fall of 2004, as well as Cape Flats, scheduled for the fall of 2006. He also gave an invited lecture, "The Making of a Real Democracy in South Africa."

As an Affiliated Scholar with the Center for Black Diaspora, Dr. Zegeye, along with Dr. Fassil Demissie, Public Policy Studies, and Dr. Sandra Jackson, the Director of the Center will convene an international conference on "Theorizing the African and Black Diaspora Indentity, Memory and Representation" scheduled for May 2006.   
  
  
  

Nthabiseng Motsemme
Visiting Ford Fellow
2006-2007

Nthabiseng Motsemme is a Ford Foundation fellow completing her PhD at the University of South Africa on Intergenerational experiences of Violence and Violation, bodies for Healing amongst mothers and daughters in Chesterville Township, KwaZulu-Natal [South Africa]. Her study is an investigation of the lifeworlds of mothers who bear children, endure and survive political repression, and daughters who embody these memories of the past, but must negotiate their own particular alternative experiences in a time of democracy and AIDS. In drawing us to the lived worlds of these women in urban ghettoes, Motsemme wants us to understand how these women conceptualize violation and ultimately healing for themselves.

During her time at the Center she will be conducting further research for her PhD, presenting and participating in seminars at the center, as well as the Women’s and Gender Studies and African and Black Diaspora Studies programs.

Nthabiseng’s general research interests include Womanist and Black Feminist theory, as well as Cultural theories. She has published on issues focusing on gender and memory at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC]; and identities in transition after the death of political apartheid. Some of her publications include:

Motsemme, N. “Loving in a time of hopelessness: On township women’s subjectivities in a time of HIV/AIDS." Chapter contribution for book volume entitled: Basus’ imbokodo Bawel’ imilambo: Women making history in South Africa. A Human Sciences Research Council" (HSRC) Project (IN PRESS).

Motsemme, N (2004) ‘The meanings of silence’ in Rhodes Journalism Review, Vol 24.

Motsemme, N (2004) ‘The mute always Speak’: On women’s silences at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,’ in Current Sociology, Vol. 52 (3), 909-932.

Motsemme, N (2003) ‘Distinguishing Beauty, creating distinctions: the politics and poetics of dress among Black women,’ in Agenda, Vol. 57, 12-18.

Motsemme, N (2003) ‘Black Women’s Identities’, in K. Ratele and N. Duncan (eds.) Social Psychology: Identities and Relationships. Cape Town: UCT Press.

Dr. Angela Winand
Visiting Faculty
2003 - 2004

Angela Winand received her Ph.D. in American Culture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her dissertation entitled, "Weighed Upon a Scale: African American Women, Class and Consumer Culture in New Orleans and Washington D.C. 1880-1950," is a study of the activist and literary careers and published short stories of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Mary Church Terrell's autobiography and a reading of the diary of Nellie DeSpelder, a university professor. It is a study in issues of class and visual representation of Black middle-class women in contrast to that of Black working-class women.

Dr. Winand's research and teaching interests include African American women's biography and autobiography, African American cultural history, and constructions of Black women's sexuality in film.

During this year, she is working on external grant development for Center activities, and during the winter and spring quarters, she will be teaching courses in the History and Women's and Gender Studies programs.