Conference Schedule

Please visit the registration table upon arrival. Light breakfast items will be available. 

Dean Stephanie Shonekan, College of Arts and Humanities

"Arts, Literature, and Cultural Production in Africa"

This panel brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of arts, literature and cultural production. They will be considering questions about post-colonial legacies of African cultural production; archives and publics; politics and modes of production; aesthetics and definitions; provenance and classification; and power and resistance.

Moderator: Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, Director, Comparative Literature; Associate Professor, English, University of Maryland

Participants:

Amsale Alemu, Assistant Professor, African Studies, Howard University
Chambi Chachage, Assistant Professor, African Studies, Howard University
K.E. Coney-Ali, Co-Executive Director, Gallery of Art; Adjunct Lecturer, Art Department, Howard University
Lisa Gilman, Director, Institute for Immigration Research; Professor, Folklore and English, George Mason University
Caroline Maguire, Professorial Lecturer, Museum Studies, George Washington University; Provenance Researcher, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art
Jonathon Repinecz, Associate Professor, French and Global Affairs, George Mason University

Buffet lunch open to all conference attendees on a first come, first served basis.

"Africa, Environmental Justice and Sustainability"

The scholars and practitioners on this panel will be discussing environmental justice and sustainability practices in Africa. They will consider questions about current environmental and sustainability issues in post-colonial Africa, the impact post-colonial legacies have had on the continent, environmental justice and racism, the extent to which the diaspora or migration within Africa informs environmental justice, and the role of international players and their impact on environmental issues in Africa.

Moderator & Participant: Jayson Maurice Porter, Assistant Professor, History & Latin America and Caribbean Studies Center, University of Maryland

Confirmed participants:

Asma Amina Belem, Visiting Fellow, Center for African Studies, Howard University 
Maurice Carney, Executive Director, Friends of the Congo
Amy Yeboah Quarkume, Associate Professor, Environmental Studies, Howard University
Quito J. Swan, Professor, History and Africana Studies; Director, Africana Studies Program, George Washington University 

"Retrenchment and Reordering: Governance, Aid, and Geopolitics in Africa"

This roundtable examines how shifting global priorities—particularly the retrenchment of U.S. aid, changing security commitments, and evolving geopolitical competition—are reshaping governance and political life across Africa. Moving beyond a narrow focus on aid volumes, the discussion considers the broader normative and institutional effects of these shifts: how declining support reconfigures state–society relations, alters the incentives of political elites, and reshapes the terrain of democratic practice. Participants will reflect on how African governments and communities are navigating a landscape marked by reduced external support, new security alignments, and intensified US-China competition. What forms of political order emerge when longstanding development and security partnerships are restructured or withdrawn? How do these changes intersect with domestic political economies, patterns of militarization, and the recalibration of international alliances? By foregrounding both structural transformations and local responses, the roundtable aims to interrogate whether current shifts signal a reconfiguration of geopolitical lines or the emergence of new political possibilities on the continent.

Moderator: Beka Guluma, Assistant Professor, African American and Africana Studies, University of Maryland

Participants:

Ampson Hagan, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, University of Maryland
Bulelani Jili, Assistant Professor, African Studies, Georgetown University
Carl LeVan, Professor and Chair, Politics, Governance & Economics, School of International Service, American University
Fiona Shen-Bayh, Assistant Professor, Government & Politics, University of Maryland
Michael Woldemariam, Associate Professor, Public Policy; Senior Fellow, Center for International & Security Studies at Maryland, University of Maryland

Light refreshments will be available.

Keynote Speaker: Anita Plummer, Associate Professor, African Studies; Director, Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership, Howard University

Africa's digital transformation has been celebrated as a pathway to development, inclusion, and economic sovereignty. Yet the infrastructure underpinning that promise telecommunications networks, data centers, fiber optic cables, and mobile platforms is increasingly financed and built by China, raising urgent questions about whose vision of modernity is being constructed, and for whom. This talk argues that digital transformation is not a technological or economic inevitability but deeply contested political terrain, one that demands analysis rooted in lived experience, structural power relations, and specifically the collective agency of African women.