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Fall Events:
Migrations of Africans and
the Creation of Western Wealth
Tuesday, September 21, 2004 • 7:00 p.m.
Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd Floor, Barnard Hall
 From the 15th to the 19th centuries, millions of Africans migrated against their wishes to the far side of the Atlantic. In time, and as European empires spread and prospered, African peoples were carried even further afield, to the distant corners of the globe. By the early 1800s, Africans and their descendants could be found in Liverpool and Lima, in Bridgetown and Botany Bay. But this was no ordinary migration of peoples. It was enforced and brutal and yet, despite that, it was a migration which had a simple economic function: to enhance the economic well-being of the Europeans and Americans who conceived and sponsored the system. More difficult however is to know how to calibrate precisely the nature and form of that material well-being. This discussion is designed to suggest a broader approach to the economic and social impact of enslaved Africans in the economic transformation of the West: from the ubiquitous social habits of western life (smoking and drinking sweet tea) to the proliferation of grand homes across the face of urban and rural Europe. The social and economic culture of modern Europe was shaped in large measure by the efforts of Africans, in ways Europeans rarely recognize or accept.
James Walvin has taught at the University of York for many years. His main area of interest is African slavery in the Atlantic world, and he has published widely in that field. He has also done work within the field of modern social history, including studies of the history of soccer. For almost twenty years Walvin co-edited the journal Slavery and Abolition. His new book is An Atlas of Slavery (Pearson-Longman, 2004) and he is currently completing the Penguin Book of Slavery.
Bollywood Comes to Nigeria : Indian Films and African Cultures
Tuesday, September 28, 2004 • 7:00 p.m.
Julius S. Held Lecture Hall, 304 Barnard Hall
 The many films of Bollywood have followed the path of Indian migration across the globe, connecting diasporic Indians to an archive of images, songs and memories of the homeland. More interesting is the longstanding popularity of Indian films with non-Indian audiences. The sight of a fifteen foot image of Sridevi, dancing on the screens of northern Nigeria, or of Amitabh Bachchan seen through the snowy reception of television have become powerful images within the culture of Hausa people of Nigeria. There, for over fifty years, Indian films, have been a dominant part of everyday life. This popularity is mimicked by the extraordinary global reach of Bollywood that has been truly successful in marginalizing Hollywood in many world markets yet which has, until recently, rarely been analyzed in discussions of global media. It is this migration across the boundaries of nation, language, culture and religion that makes Hindi films truly global media. This talk will examine the strange migration of Indian films across national boundaries to see how global media operate and how culture is formed.
Brian Larkin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Barnard College, writes on issues of globalization, media and culture. He is co-editor with Faye Ginsburg and Lila Abu-Lughod of Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. His research is based in Nigeria where he has written extensively on how media have facilitated new forms of globalization and
cultural change.
Ready for Revolution: Ekwueme Michael Thelwell on Stokely Carmichael
Tuesday, October 19, 2004 • 7:00 p.m.
Sulzberger Parlor, 3rd Floor, Barnard Hall
 Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Jamaican born writer, educator, and activist, will discuss his recently published book, Ready for Revolution, on the late civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael. During the last months of his life, Carmichael dictated his story to Thelwell, his friend and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) colleague. The autobiography was published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Carmichael’s death in 1998 in Guinea and traces Carmichael’s path from Trinidad immigrant to student activist with SNCC to honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party to his embrace of Pan-Africanism.
Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the author of the classic Jamaican novel, The Harder They Come, a collection of political and literary essays, Duties, Pleasures, and Conflicts, and numerous articles on politics and
literature. Thelwell attended Howard University (B.A., 1964), where he first became involved in the civil rights movement, serving as director of the Washington, D.C. office of SNCC, and recruiting volunteers for Freedom Summer. He has worked in Washington for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (1964-65), and led a citizens’ legislative initiative to end American tax-payer subsidies to apartheid, which was signed into law in 1987. Thelwell has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Society for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Centennial Medal of the Institute of Jamaica and is presently at work on a critical study of the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe.
New York Food: The Culture and Cuisine of Immigrants
Tuesday, November 9, 2004 • 7:00 p.m.
The James Room, 4th Floor, Barnard Hall
 For centuries, immigrants in New York have preserved and celebrated their culture and identity through food. Food styles and menu offerings vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood, largely depending on the culture of the those that originally settled that area. Foods thought to be quintessential New York staples, such as the bagel, the knish and pizza were brought here by immigrants looking for a taste of home. Culinary trends in the city are constantly being shaped by the influx of peoples coming from abroad. While it is difficult to transport belongings from place to place, it is easy to transport recipes. Tom Bernardin, author of The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook, will explore the culinary history of New York’s immigrant population. The lecture will be accompanied by a tasting of recipes from the book.
Tom Bernardin, author, historian, preservationist, and licensed New York City tour guide was a National Park Service guide at Ellis Island, an association that inspired him to write The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook. He saw food as the single, common thread that unified the 16 million individuals that entered this country through Ellis Island. For the book, Mr. Bernardin conducted a nationwide search for authentic immigrant recipes. He has been on NPR, the Food Network, A&E and The History Channel. Mr. Bernardin has recently founded Save America’s Clocks (http://www.clocks.org/), a not-for-profit group dedicated to the preservation and maintenance of America’s public clocks. Originally from Massachusetts, he graduated from Holy Cross College and now lives in New York City.
Space for this event is limited, reservation required. Please reserve by e-mailing mhand@barnard.edu, or calling 212-854-3577.
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Click here for a list of Spring 2004 events.
Click
here for a list of Fall 2003 events.
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