bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ctesias, his royal patrons and Indian swords
Authors: Bigwood J. M.
Published: May 2006

Like his predecessor Herodotus, Ctesias has a great deal to report of marvellous springs, lakes and other bodies of water. Indeed, in one of the most noteworthy tales in his book on India, he describes a remarkable well which produces not water but gold. The story has never been discussed in full. A recent scholar, in fact, in one of the few allusions to it, reproduces the account, but only in part, namely the lines which concern the gold. The original narrative, however, includes much more, for it deals, in addition, with the iron found at the bottom of the well and with its remarkable properties, as well as with the two swords of this metal which Ctesias allegedly received, one from the queen-mother, the other from the king.
Comic Satire and Freedom of Speech in Classical Athens
Authors: Halliwell Stephen
Published: May 2006

For at least several decades of its official history of performance at state festivals—the period usually and, in part for this very reason, known as that of Old Comedy—Athenian comic drama was marked by an exceptional degree of indulgence in ridicule and vilification of named or recognizable individuals: ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν, as it became termed by Hellenistic scholarship. In character and extent this practice belongs to a cluster of generic features (alongside, most notably, obscenity and outspoken comment on topical political issues) which give urgency to the question of the relation between the comic stage and the laws, mores, and values current in Athenian society of the time.
Alexander's Sacrificedis praesidibus locibefore the Battle of Issus
Authors: Bing J. D.
Published: May 2006

On a fall night before Issus in 333 BC, we are told by Curtius Rufus, Alexander ascended by torchlight to the summit of a lofty mountain, and in accordance with ancestral custom performed sacrifices to the chief guardian deities of the place: an intriguing historical remnant, the more challenging because Curtius provides no other details, and no other Alexander account gives reliable information about this particular display of piety. Consequently the gods in question remain unknown. The purpose of this study is to establish the likelihood that Alexander did in fact perform these rites, and to determine the probable identities of the deities in the light of what is known about religious cults at Issus before he arrived.
Hesiod's father
Authors: Cook R. M.
Published: May 2006

In this note it is assumed that the bibliographical remarks in the Works and Days are true or anyhow true enough.

Hesiod's father started at Cyme in Aeolis. For a time he tried the sea—for trade, to judge by 631–4, where trade is regarded as the only object of seafaring. After that, to flee from poverty, he migrated to Ascra in Boeotia, where he came into possession of a farm, prosperous enough when divided between his sons to allow each of them a reasonable livelihood (37 for division; 298–307 for implication that Perses' share too was in land).

Hesiod does not say how his father obtained his farm at Ascra. The most popular explanation is that he reclaimed waste land, but there are objections. First, Hesiod does not mention reclamation as a way in which a landless man could become landed or a landed man enlarge his property, though he approved enlargement, but by purchase (341).
Lactantius, Hermes Trismegistus and Constantinian obelisks
Authors: Nicholson Caroline , Nicholson Oliver
Published: May 2006

In a recent article in this journal (JHScvii [1987] 51–57) Garth Fowden has argued that the obelisk from Karnak erected by Constantius II in Rome in 357 had been promised to that city by his father Constantine, as Ammianus Marcellinus states, and was not originally intended, as was claimed in the (lost) inscription on its base, for Constantine's new foundation at Constantinople. The interesting suggestion is made that Constantine might have been in touch with Athenian religious experts over the matter, and the project is seen as an earnest of ‘his desire to conciliate the pagan Establishment of Old Rome’. The point of this piece is to enlarge on the possible significance of the obelisk to contemporary Christians that is hinted at by Dr Fowden.

Constantine paid three visits to Rome as emperor, in 312, after winning the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, in 315 during the celebration of his Decennalia, and in 326 for his Vicennalia; on at least one of these occasions, he gave offence to non-Christian Romans by declining to perform the customary procession to the Capitol to offer sacrifice.
Plataea's relations with Thebes, Sparta and Athens
Authors: Hammond N. G. L.
Published: May 2006

Plataea was an ancient city of ‘Boiotoi’ (Iliad ii 494 and 504; cf. Thuc. iii 61.2). Throughout its chequered history the citizens were always described as ‘Boiotoi’ (e.g. Thuc. iii 54.3; Isoc. Panath. 93; [D.] lix 95; Arr. An. i 8.8; Paus. i 15.3). The citizens were ‘the Plataeans’, whether they were in possession of their city or not. They figured as Πλαταιες on the serpent column of 479/8 (M-L 27, 7), as Πλαταιῆς in the list of Athens' allies in 431 (Thuc. ii 9.4), and as Πλαταιῆς ψιλοί fighting alongside Athenians in 424 BC when their city was in enemy hands (Thuc. iv 67.2 and 5). Although the majority of the Plataeans lived as refugees in Attica between 428 and 382, and again from 373 to 338, they continued to be ‘Plataeans’ and were never described in our sources as Athenians. The ability of the Plataeans to survive as a refugee community was paralleled, for example, by the ability of the Aeginetan refugees between 431 and 405 and the Samian refugees between 366 and 322 (Diod. xviii 18.9) to survive and ultimately to reoccupy their homeland. It was as such a community that ‘the Plataeans’ were brought back ‘from Athens’ to their ruined city in 382 (Paus. ix 1.4.).
‘Bloom of Youth’: a labelled Syro-Palestinian unguent jar
Authors: Smith Robert Houston
Published: May 2006

The inscribed miniature jar shown in the photograph (Plate VI (c)) and drawing Fig. 1) is part of a collection of artifacts purchased many years ago in Palestine that was recently donated to Ashland University in Ohio (United States) by Professor and Mrs. Delbert H. Flora. Only 5.2 cm. in height and 5.5 cm. in diameter, the vessel has a biconical, wheelmade body and a string-cut base. The ware, which appears to be Syro-Palestinian, is moderately well levigated and fired light brown. Inclusions, so far as they can be discerned, consist predominantly of quartz and chert particles in various sizes, both angular and round, as well as of some small limestone and unidentified rock fragments. The upper portion of the exterior and the interior of the rim display remnants of a dark brownish-black slip imitating black gloss (‘glaze’); in places where it was thinly applied, the slip has become pale brown or has disappeared entirely.
Biography, Fiction, and the Archilochean ainos
Authors: Irwin Elizabeth
Published: May 2006

That articles on Archilochus begin with a historical overview of the approaches to his ‘I’ and the issue of the historicity of the characters who occupy his poems is a tradition in its own right. Scholarly debate on Archilochus oscillates between total disbelief in and defensive support of the actuality of these figures and an autobiographical stance for the poet. The positions of the respective scholars have often been uncompromising and the language passionate, mirroring perhaps the generic requirements of iambos, or inspired perhaps by the ‘roguish Archilochus’ himself.
On the life of Asclepiades of Bithynia
Authors: Polito Roberto
Published: May 2006

Any list of the most eminent Greek physicians must inevitably include the late Hellenistic doctor Asclepiades of Bithynia. He was both extremely successful during his lifetime, and highly influential after his death. His revolutionary pathology and therapeutic method were the objects of much discussion. His importance, however, goes beyond the history of medicine as such. In spite of the fact that most current handbooks of ancient philosophy ignore him altogether, philosophy does appear to have been a major interest of his. He was an uncompromising opponent of providentialism and teleology. He challenged the idea, at the time the dominant one, that matter is continuous. He accounted for the functioning of the body in purely mechanistic and quantitative terms, and also developed an account of the soul, unique in its time, which arguably provides the closest ancient antecedent to modern reductionism.
Eurymedon and the evolution of political personifications in the early classical period
Authors: Smith Amy C.
Published: May 2006

In the 460s BC an unnamed artist painted an unusual oinochoe with a unique scene–a Greek chasing an Oriental archer–that marks an important stage in the development of symbolic imagery in the arts of early Classical Greece. This oinochoe of unusual shape (Plate 8a-b), now in Hamburg, was first published by Konrad Schauenburg. On side A, a bearded Greek hunter, running ¾-view to the right, clutches his phallos in his right hand and reaches his left arm toward an Oriental archer, on side B. The archer stands ¾-view to the right, bent at the hips, with his upper body in a rare frontal pose, and his hands raised to his head. A curious inscription fills the space between the two characters. Two equally plausible restorations of the inscription, each of which carries its own divergent interpretation of the images, have emerged: the original publication by Schauenburg and a response by Gloria Pinney.
Gregory Nazianzinos and Byzantine hymnography
Authors: Karavites Peter
Published: May 2006

Frequent references have been made by several scholars to the use of Gregory's writings as a ‘mine’ for Byzantine hymnography. The discussions have usually stopped with three or four quick citations of the instances that best exemplify the borrowing. To date there has not been any systematic effort to research the topic in greater detail. This failure is understandable. Such a research presupposes knowledge not only of Gregory's writings, a major task in itself since his works occupy four volumes of PG, but also of Byzantine hymnography which is scattered throughout several volumes used by the Orthodox Church in its daily heortologion. Adding the possibilities that might exist among the mss of Grottaferrata and those that might exist in the Vatican Library, one can easily understand the magnitude of the task and its complexities. This paper attempts a limited but still daunting undertaking: the ferreting out of the borrowings from Gregory by the Byzantine hymnographers whose hymns are still used by the Orthodox Church. Beyond the obvious borrowings by the hymnographers from Gregory lies the insoluble problem of what may be directly borrowed and what indirectly. How can one prove that similarities or even identities in the language denote direct borrowing of one author from another? The complexities of such an investigation notwithstanding, the effort should be made, even on a limited scale, because of the interest and the challenge involved.
The beginning of Greek polychrome painting
Authors: Schaus Gerald P.
Published: May 2006

About the mid-seventh century, polychrome styles of vase painting appeared in five different Greek wares, and in a sixth ware a short time after. By polychrome here is meant the use of a light brown or reddish brown paint for male flesh in human figure scenes, to go with the normal colours found on seventh-century Greek vases, black, red and white. The use of this light brown or reddish brown paint may have begun a little earlier, e.g. for parts of animals, but it would be confusing to call this partial polychrome and to regard this as a preliminary step towards the distinctive use of brown for male human flesh. The six wares in which polychrome vases appear are Protocorinthian, Protoattic, Argive, Naxian, ‘Melian’ (likely from Paros), and a ware found at Megara Hyblaea. Except for ‘Melian’ polychrome which continues to the end of the seventh or early sixth century, each of these polychrome styles flourishes for a brief time and then disappears.
Homeric words and speakers: An addendum
Authors: de Jong I. J. F.
Published: May 2006

This note is written in reaction to Jasper Griffin's article in JHS cvi (1986) 36–57. He argues two points: (1) that there is a significant difference in vocabulary between the narrated portions of Iliad and Odyssey and the speeches, the former containing almost no emotional, critical, or evaluative words; (2) that Achilles and Agamemnon each have their own characteristic vocabulary.
A Tribute to Claude Ake
Authors: Mittelman James H.
Published: May 2006

In 1992 vice presidential debate, Ross Perot’s running mate asked, “Who am I? What am I doing here?” Similarly, I wonder why I am speaking here tonight along with a group of highly distinguished Africanists.
South Africa to the Future: Challenges of African Politics
Authors: Ba’Nikongo Nikongo
Published: May 2006

Contemporary Africa has little to be proud of. Between starvation, political corruption and economic inefficiency on the one hand and political unrest, political delegitimation and increasing refugization of widespread populations on the other, it is little wonder that many are writing off Africa. Some writers have stated emphatically that Africa is “Falling Off the Map.” African problems are many; African solutions seem to be few and far between. In a world where power is being redefined, where the New World Order presents new realities of geopolitic, it is no longer sufficient for Third World nations to play one super-power off against another. Africa is lost.
Black Studies, White Studies, and Afrocentrism
Authors: Miller Paul T.
Published: May 2006

It is with the continued advances in the discipline of African American (Black) Studies that this essay comes to life. Recent articles by Bunzel and Grossman take dubious aim at Black Studies, its instructors, and its organizing principles. Grossman is even so obtuse as to use Lefkowitz’s Not Out of Africa, a book with virtually no grounding in reality as it relates to African Studies, to help prove her misguided thoughts. The authors are not concerned with Black Studies so much as they are with the fear of losing the privileged position White studies maintains. They use their articles as a poor attempt to discredit or otherwise slander a discipline that they simply do not understand or even attempt to understand. Articles such as “Tales from the Black Studies Ghetto” and “Black Studies Revisited” are clear evidence of the fear and ignorance Eurocentric thinkers are gripped by when dealing with an Afrocentric paradigm.
The Dichotomy of Politics and Corruption in a Neopatrimonial State: Evidence from Sierra Leone, 1968-1993
Authors: Smith Gerald H.
Published: May 2006

The scholarly studies on political corruption in Africa are not conclusive, given the lack of knowledge of how neopatrimonialism contributes to state corruption. This is an important omission. There are obvious relationships between regime types and the likelihood, nature, and extent of political corruption. The analysis of political corruption in Sierra Leone has important implications for our understanding of the relationship between neopatrimonialism and state corruption.
American Policy Toward Southern Africa: Critical Choices
Authors: Wheeler Douglas L.
Published: May 2006

Since Waldemar Nielsen published his generous, unheeded and ultimately wrong prediction, much has happened in southern Africa and in the United States. In southern Africa, with the exception of the situation in Portuguese-speaking Africa, little has changed and American policy has remained largely as Nielsen then described it. Since the April 25, 1974 coup in Lisbon which overthrew the New State dictatorship, remarkable changes have begun to occur in Portugal and in her African territories: Portugal has granted independence to Guinea-Bissau (September 12), and has pledged independence to Angola and to Mozambique at an undetermined future date and in a manner as yet to be clearly explicated. But American policy toward Portugal and toward the territories it still controls in southern Africa maintains extreme caution. Our policy has remained rather passive, unimaginative, in want of innovation and, it seems, replete with compromises. In short, present American policy here appears to lack any clear conceptual basis or purpose.
Diary of Inhaminga
Authors: Martens Fathers J. , Verdaasdonk A. , van Rijen J. , van Kampen A. , Tielema J.
Published: May 2006

Portugal s occupation of Africa began with violence, it was maintained by violence, and after five hundred years it is coming to an end through violence.

The story of Inhaminga, the bloody events of resistance and reprisal in the war in Mozambique, is the last chapter of the longest and most use/ess colonial ordeal in Africa's history. It is one more measurement of the lives which were lost, the bodies which were sold, and the destruction which was wrought in the course of Portugal's pursuit of gain and imperial dignity in Guinea, Angola, Mozambique.

The diary by five Dutch missionaries stands with the anguished letters of Afonso, sixteenth century African king of the Congo, with the letters of condemnation written by Jesuit and Dominican missionaries, with the reports of occasional Portuguese governors and administrators, with the speeches of the humanitarian prime minister Si da Bandeira, with the accounts of British consuls, with the exposes of Casement, Nevinson, Cadbury, Ross, and in our time, with the works of Davidson and those of African poets and patriots, Neto, Andrade, and dos Santos.

There is nothing in what has been written in protest—and little that has been written in praise—of the Portuguese occupation of Africa which even at the end can give any sense or dignity to an absurd colonial adventure, a violent misappropriation of Africa and Africans.

And it is this force of violence—turned against the Portuguese army and colonial administration—which has led to Lisbon s sudden and frantic attempts to disengage. In these accounts of the last days of empire one distinction stands out from the protest of other times. As much as the story of Portuguese atrocities, this is the story of African resistance to those atrocities and the rule which created them. The Diary of Inhaminga is an extraordinary document in its simplicity of emotion and detail. It is worthy of the resistance it recounts.
The Rhodesian Front and the African National Council
Authors: Kirk Tony
Published: May 2006

In most countries ordinary people do not appreciate the sheer guile of their political leaders. Rhodesia is no exception. The dealings between the government and the African National Council confirm it. The government interrupted its dialogue with the ANC by detaining thirty-three senior ANC officials without trial, effectively destroying the cohesion of the only black political organization in the country. To the white voter, who sees no further than the surface of events, the detentions represented a simple exercise of executive power. In fact the government could not act in as sudden and arbitrary a fashion as that. It had to choose the time for its action with care, and to some extent it had to prepare the white electorate to accept what happened without question. The government also had to conceal its true intentions from the ANC without resorting to outright falsehood. Finally, it had to leave itself free to make a flexible response to the sort of unpredictable events which inevitably occur in political life and which often wreck the most carefully drafted plans. Formulating a policy to meet these contradictory objectives without giving the appearance of bad faith required much guile. The outcome, in the short term at least, was success.
Montreal in 1969: A Personal View
Authors: Gutkind Peter
Published: May 2006

When I took on the job as local arrangements chairman (what we would now call chairperson) for the 1969 annual meeting of our association, held in Montreal, I did not expect to cater for the largest meeting in our history. Nor was I really prepared for the historic occasion that it was. Of course there had been rumblings the previous year, for after all that was the time when we were still involved with various confrontations. Today the excitement has gone, we are now all very inward looking, and it is rather difficult to tell what, if anything, lingers from those days. But historic occasion it was, of that there is no doubt. Almost eighteen hundred people registered, and the program we published for the occasion is now a collector’s item. I was recently offered twenty-five dollars for a copy!
Human Rights in Africa: Toward the Definition of the Problem of a Double Standard
Authors: Wiseberg Laurie S.
Published: May 2006

In August 1936, 4,069 athletes from forty-nine countries participated in the Olympic Games in Berlin, hosted by the Nazi Fuehrer. It is true that the full bestiality of the Third Reich was not yet manifest in 1936; the gas ovens, the slave labor camps, and the rape of Europe were yet to come. However, by that year, Nazi ideology had already been articulated: blacks, Jews and gypsies had been declared sub-human; Hitler had issed his Nuremburg Laws depriving Jews of their citizenship and civil rights; German rearmament was well underway; and the National Socialists had brutally consolidated a racist despotism.
American Policy Toward Southern Africa Under a New Administration
Authors: Clark Dick
Published: May 2006

It is both a pleasure and an honor for me to address you tonight, just a few hours after one of our nation’s most important elections and at a time when we are at the threshold of fundamental new choices of policies for the African continent.
Black American Involvement in South Africa's Race Issue
Authors: Keto Clement Tsehloane
Published: May 2006

People of African descent in America occupy a singular position in relation to the race problems faced by Blacks in South Africa. Many Afro-Americans have had firsthand experience with the practice of race discrimination either in its blatant Jim Crow manifestations or in its more covert institutional forms. This common experience with race discrimination in South Africa and the United States makes it possible, for example, to correlate W.E.B. Dubois' description of the warring “double consciousness” of the black American made in 1903 with the expressions of frustration written by Albert Luthuli in 1962. This commonality also establishes a basis from which a meaningful assessment can be made regarding the historical role of black Americans in the race issue of South Africa.
Africa 2000: Thinking about the African Future in the Modern World System
Authors: Hall Raymond L.
Published: May 2006

Comprehension of most of the contemporary events and developments in sub-Saharan Africa requires that they be explained in the larger context of the modern world system. Specifically, conflict within and between African nations —often involving various kinds of outside aid, including the use of foreign troops—and racial conflict in Southern Africa could be better understood if they were treated under larger categories related to topics in international relations. Some of the categories would be: Africa’s strategic importance to the superpowers vis-à-vis the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa; the extension of support related to racial community; the importance of African natural resources; the dynamics of African internal politics and their aussenpolitic in relation to superpower ideologies; and various forms of development strategies utilized by African nations.
Ethnic Stratification and Political Cleavage
Authors: Segal Bernard E.
Published: May 2006

With different names and under different guises ethnicity is old. Despite often drastic changes in the world around it, it remains in most places a lasting vessel containing and fusing individual and collective identities. Words like traditional and primordial are so frequently used to describe it that they now seem almost synonymous with it. Little wonder. As terms deriving their force from their connotation of strong basic emotional attachment and implicit shared commitment, ‘they suggest the sources of ethnicity’s pulling power.

Resting on language, place, faith, phenotype, origin, and passages through common glory or common disaster, ethnicity encapsulates and summarizes a near infinity of spoken and unspoken clues and assumptions which serve to set apart those who know and feel them from those who do not.
African Population Growth and Politics
Authors: Abate Yohannis
Published: May 2006

The population of Africa in 1977 is estimated to be 423 million, which is about 10.3 percent of the world population. For a quarter of the world’s land area, that is a small population.

Sources: Willcox, Durand, United Nations, PRB.

Africa’s share of world population declined between 1650 and 1920, partly because the population of Europe and the Americas was increasing gradually through factors associated with the Industrial Revolution, and partly because of the ravages of the slave trade and the European colonial pacification measures. Since the 1920s, however, Africa’s population has been growing fast, and its share of world population could reach 13 percent by the year 2000.
Feeding Africa: A Dissent from Development
Authors: Alverson Hoyt
Published: May 2006

The population of Africa is roughly estimated to be 300,000,000 and believed to be growing at a very high rate, perhaps as much as 3 percent per annum. If these figures are accurate, Africa will have a population of over one-half billion by the year 2000. In light of this prospect, a question asked more from desperation than curiosity is whether these millions can all be fed, at least enough to avert mass starvation and pandemic malnutrition. Paul Ehrlich and others have argued it is not possible. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970’s the world will undergo famine, hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
How can Africa Develop in its Own Interest?
Authors: McBride Robert H.
Published: May 2006

A volume published some years ago, called How to Lie with Statistics, took an extremist view of the problem raised by its title. Unreliability of statistics is my starting point for a necessarily brief analysis of what appears a significant problem for sub-Saharan Africa: how can Africa develop in the interests of its own people, as distinct from the largely European beneficiaries of the African economy today; and how can “development” take place, as opposed to mere “growth”?

The distinctions between development and growth have been analyzed penetratingly in, for example, Basil Davidson’s Can Africa Survive? and in the articles in Africa in the Seventies and Eighties, edited by Frederick Arkhurst, especially in the editor’s comments.
Africa and the World Economy: Prospects for Growth, Development and Independence
Authors: Wright Sanford
Published: May 2006

The importance of economic growth, development, and independence to. African countries cannot be overemphasized; Africa has been, and continues to be, the most economically disadvantaged part of the world. Economic growth, normally indicated by the increase in monetary Gross Domestic Product, is essential to meet the needs of increasing populations as well as their rising levels of expectations. Development involves the structural changes necessary to make an economy more balanced, integrated, and flexible, and is essential for sustaining growth. Economic dependence, which is reflected in such features as open economies, high levels of foreign assistance, and exports of a few primary products to a limited number of destinations, is viewed as being a major causal factor for underdevelopment and an impingement on national pride and dignity.
How Africanists View U.S. Africa Policy: Results of a Survey
Authors: Bratton Michael , Heinisch Reinhard , Wiley David S.
Published: May 2006

Two articles in the last Issue (Winter 1990) and an accompanying article in this Issue examine the relationships between U.S. Africanists and U.S. policy-makers from the perspective of “players” in the policy process. All these articles are based mainly upon interviews with current and former U.S. government officials and with experienced scholars who regularly participate in policy affairs.
African Military and Political Development: Reflections on a Score of Years, and Several Score of Studies
Authors: Welch Claude E.
Published: May 2006

In the past twenty years, scholars have spilled a great deal of ink debating the role of armed forces in political development. A variety of views have been expressed—and, not unexpectedly, the field lacks a scholarly paradigm. As this paper will indicate, Africa has received its share of studies of the military, notably since the eruption of coups d'etat in late 1965-early 1966 made clear that the presumably “nonpolitical” heritage of colonial armies was quickly being supplanted by direct, extensive political involvement on the part of officers. This essay attempts both to summarize the results of a score of years and several score of studies, and to indicate new directions for research in coming years.
Polemics and African Studies
Authors: Mittelman James H.
Published: May 2006

Two recent conferences illustrate on-going debates in African studies and dramatically reflect some of the major issues in African politics. Convening in Addis Ababa, December 9-19,1973, the Third International Congress of Africanists adopted a broad theme: “The Economic, Social, Political, Scientific and Cultural Development of Africa.“ The Ninth Annual Social Science Conference of the East African Universities, which met in Dar es Salaam, December 18-20, 1973, focused on “Rural Development.“
Black Initiatives for Change in Southern Africa
Authors: Carter Gwendolen M.
Published: May 2006

For generations, Blacks in southern Africa have tried one expedient after another to promote change in the highly discriminatory conditions under which they live. In choosing to concentrate in this lecture on certain specific approaches made in recent years by African and American Blacks to achieve this purpose, there is no intention of underrating these long and persistent attempts made in earlier periods and also by many others. Insofar as this paper is infused with a basic assumption, however, it is that Blacks must unite their efforts within and across national and continental boundaries and use the widest range of pressures if there is to be a chance of creating basic change in colonial and minority-ruled southern Africa.
The United States and South Africa: Human Investment
Authors: Segal Aaron
Published: May 2006

The impassioned debate between those who support sanctions in order to bring about change in South Africa and those who favor “constructive engagement” misses the point. Each side assumes that the problem is to exercise U.S. leverage and pressure on the South African government. It is not. Instead the opportunity is for the U.S. to assist in human investment to help South Africans to acquire the education, skills and training to build their own future. Pressure may or may not contribute to the South African government changing its policies and practices. Investment in human resources has a more reliable payoff in terms of individuals capable of participating in building a new South Africa.
Gulf and Angola
Authors: Farber Stephen B.
Published: May 2006

On April 19 of this year the President and Fellows of Harvard College announced their intention to “send a representative to Angola to provide us first-hand information on Gulf's performance, the problems it faces, and opportunities for constructive new steps, and thereby to help us determine our future actions as a responsible Gulf shareholder.”
The Contribution of African Scholars and Teachers to African Studies, 1955–1975
Authors: Obichere Boniface I.
Published: May 2006

In his address to the First Congress of Africanists in Accra on 12 December 1962, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah reminded his audience that they were united by the fact that they wanted to find out the truth about Africa, and when they had found out, they would proclaim it to the world. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah thus underscored the duality of the role of the Africanists in the second half of the twentieth century. Those engaged in African studies were charged to search for the truth about Africa with scientific and academic rigor. They were also exhorted to make known and to share the results of their research and discoveries with the world at large. African studies, according to Dr. Nkrumah, should help to create the launching pad for progressive and dynamic social policy.
Africa and the United States Media
Authors: Segal Aaron
Published: May 2006

Africa and Africans do not get along well with the United States press, radio and television—and vice versa. Most Africans (whether students, individuals, or government officials) who have had some exposure believe it offers of Africa. Most directors of the U.S. media are leery of Africa and would prefer major news events to occur elsewhere. Fraternization and sympathy are mostly limited to African journalists who have lived or traveled in the United States (a considerable number on various exchange grants) and American journalists who have done an African stint. Alcoholically cursing their respective bosses, these two groups usually get on quite well.
Black Studies as an Integral Tradition in African-American Intellectual History
Authors: Turner James , McGann C. Steven
Published: May 2006

The modern Black Studies movement, in its present form, appeared in the 1960s as an emergent academic field and a self-conscious component part of the larger social and political movement for Black liberation. In contrast to the 1950s, which had been labeled “the silent generation” by some scholars, the 1960s were times of widespread political unrest and social movements. These currents were enlivened and precipitated by the Black liberation movement in its current stage of struggle for democratic rights, commonly referred to during that period as the “civil rights movement.” The Black college campuses were the source of leadership for this movement by young (though not exclusively) activist-intellectuals. The general social climate of self-assertion and political protest released an intellectual ferment that stimulated some Black students and Black scholars in their demand for “Black Studies” as a vanguard opposition to an entrenched intellectualism in American society.
Confessions of a Placement Officer
Authors: Reefe Thomas Q.
Published: May 2006

The insights and advice presented here are not offered dogmatically. Rather, they are the best I can muster from my ten years’ experience with the professional job market, first as an African history job-seeker and later as a graduate placement officer. Despite the doom and gloom about employment that pervades the professional schools churning out M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s in the social sciences and humanities, it has been my experience that many advanced degree holders can still obtain meaningful and rewarding teaching careers. I have found that successful job candidates are often the people who seek work with the same drive, determination, and thoroughness with which they did their research in Africa.
The Recruitment Committee
Authors: Patterson David
Published: May 2006

People seeking academic positions will find themselves dealing with a small, mysterious body which will either end their hopes or bring their candidacy to the brink of final success. Few applicants will ever be in a position to influence a department to hire them unless they first pass the scrutiny of a committee which screens credentials, arranges short interviews at major professional meetings, and decides which candidate or candidates will be invited to campus for inspection by their colleagues. Since the activities of a recruitment committee are generally puzzling to job seekers, who are likely to receive only short, formal, and perhaps tardy communications at irregular intervals, this description may be interesting, even if it does not reduce the anxiety level of prospective academics.
The U.S. Congress and the Rhodesian Chrome Issue
Authors: McGee Gale W.
Published: May 2006

The passage of legislation late in 1971 which in effect caused the United States unilaterally to breach the United Nations sanctions against Southern Rhodesia surely constitutes one of the most shameful episodes in the recent conduct of our country's international affairs. One commentator quite correctly did not mince words in describing the action as a “chrome-plated treaty violation.” And yet, even today, it is doubtful whether any great numbers of American citizens realize that their government has broken its treaty obligations to an international institution which our country did most to initiate and to promote until very recent times. An especially saddening aspect of the affair is the fact that an Administration which rightly has condemned and often contested growing neo-isolationist sentiment in our society's outlook on the world scarcely lifted a finger to prevent precisely the kind of result it decried.
Literature and Ideology in Africa
Authors: Makward Edris
Published: May 2006

Time and again students of contemporary Africa have stressed the impact of ideologies on the literary works of contemporary African writers. Authors have also insisted on the imperative need to link closely the study of the new written literature from Africa with the study of the general cultural and political renaissance of the past two or three decades in Africa.
Continuity and Change: Political Allegiances and Attitudes in the Border Region, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
Authors: Wood Geoffrey
Published: May 2006

South Africa’s second democratic elections in June 1999 represented an important step on that country’s path to “normality,” to political pluralism, as opposed to the racial oligarchy of the past. At the same time, the clear victory of the African National Congress (ANC) underscored the dominant-party nature of South African politics. Despite the party’s overwhelming victory, however, it had to contend with a number of challenges, most notably from within its Eastern Cape heartland. This article explores the nature of party competition in the Border Corridor of the province by examining both the 1999 election results and the results of a detailed opinion survey conducted in the area in late 1998. Sandwiched between the former homelands of the Transkei and Ciskei, the corridor is of considerable importance given its geographical location and political history. The district encompasses greater East London, the provincial capital of Bisho, and King Williams Town.
Declining Democracy? A Case Study of Political Participation in Kwazakele Township, Port Elizabeth
Authors: Cherry Janet
Published: May 2006

Back in the bad old days of the mid-1980s, when we in South Africa thought we were fighting a revolutionary war, we liked to believe in a slogan that some of us attempted to put into practice. The slogan (and there were many variations of it) went something like this: “In a truly democratic society, ordinary people should have control over all aspects of their lives.” This slogan embraced a philosophy of participatory democracy that was in constant tension with the militarism, secrecy, and intolerance on the other side of the liberation movement. It expressed a deep humanism, a belief that people were capable of living unselfishly and of acting collectively, not just in times of crisis and mobilization, but daily.
Rwanda: Genocide and After
Authors: Newbury David
Published: May 2006

The papers that follow were based on presentations to two roundtables on Rwanda organized at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting held in Toronto, on November 6,1994.

At the outset, it is important to note three aspects of those roundtables. First, they were not organized as a comprehensive set of papers; instead, with one or two exceptions, the roundtables were formed of those papers which were submitted independently of each other by individual members of the ASA. I was asked simply to coordinate their presentation and prepare the papers for publication afterward. The result of this was regrettable in one major aspect: there was very little representation of Rwandans on the panels, and therefore also in this collection, although a large number of Rwandans attended the roundtables and participated energetically in the discussions, which together with the paper presentations lasted formally for nearly 6 hours, and informally far into the night.
An Open Letter to the President and Board of Directors of the Asa Concerning the Asa Response to the Genocide in Rwanda
Authors: Depelchin Jacques
Published: May 2006

When I received the July/September issue of ASA News, I had just returned from a visit to Zaire (June/July 1994), and was struggling against the current that kept me from finding the best ways to bear witness to what had happened in Burundi and Rwanda. Everything around me conspired to draw me back into the business as usual mode. With such preoccupations in my mind, my first walk through a local mall almost made me sick. I am slowly learning to understand that in the Age of the Ephemeral, attempting to interface with Memory can be as lethal as fantasizing that one could get, unscathed, through a society which puts a premium on conformity.
The Academic Freedom and Responsibilities of Foreign Scholars in African Universities
Authors: Coleman James S.
Published: May 2006

“Academic freedom,” Ashby asserts, is “an internationally recognized and unambiguous privilege of university teachers.” Is this proposition confirmed by experience to date as regards the academic freedom of the foreign scholar in African universities? This is the central empirical question. Or is it merely a culture-bound affirmation of a normative ideal which it is hoped might be instituted as a universal right of university teachers, irrespective of citizenship status, tenure of appointments, and the political and university systems in which they serve? Indeed, is it an ideal which can be realized, however imperfectly, or in any event, ought to be categorically affirmed as a privilege of foreign scholars serving in universities anywhere? These are among the questions Ashby’s proposition provokes, and which require, at the outset, some disaggregation of the meanings and interpretations of such a highly normative and emotion-ridden concept, whose genesis and sustenance are undeniably sui generis to a particular cultural and historical experience.
Racial Implications of U.S. Immigration Policy
Authors: Lapchick Richard , Hooks Benjamin , Williams Franklin
Published: May 2006

New York, N.Y., February 12, 1982. The Emergency Committee for African Refugees, in a joint press conference with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), announced a campaign to block the deportation of nearly 5,000 Ethiopian refugees. These Ethiopians have had their Voluntary Departure Status cancelled by the United States Department of State.
The UN High Commission for Refugees and the Refugee Crisis in Africa: High Commissioner’s statement to informal meeting of permanent representatives of African States accredited to the United Nations Office at Geneva, March 9, 1982
Authors: Hartling Poul
Published: May 2006

Africa remains the continent with the greatest number of refugees. All over the continent, refugees arrive in countries facing their own development problems and difficulties; they are, nevertheless, received with generosity and hospitality, in line with deep-rooted traditions that have remained alive thoughout the turmoil of events.

I cannot but emphasize once more, at the outset of this gathering, my profound appreciation for this approach of African governments and peoples to the refugee problem. This attitude brings considerable relief to the plight of the refugees and is an example to the world; it is also an ever-present asset in our relationship with the governments and in our co-operation with the Organization of African Unity, the multiple aspects of which are being constantly developed and reinforced in the most positive humanitarian spirit.
The Refugee Situation in the Horn of Africa and Sudan
Authors: Adepoju Aderanti
Published: May 2006

– “One of the most pressing problems of the world today–the plight of over 5 million refugees in Africa”

– “Every other refugee in the world is an African”

– “The refugee tragedy in Africa is a human tragedy”

– “The largest refugee problem on the continent is in the Horn of Africa”

The quotations above succinctly describe the refugee situation in Africa, in general, and especially in the Horn of Africa. In recent years, the Horn of Africa has been experiencing a rapidly worsening refugee situation. In 1979, the Organization of African United indicated that Africa, apart from “becoming the continent with the largest number of least developed countries and harbouring the largest number of the most economically backward regions in the world–constituting the periphery of the periphery in the international economic system, Africa is ... becoming the continent with largest number of refugees who constitute more than 40 per cent of the world refugee population.” The situation has since worsened as the number of refugees has reached, perhaps passed, the 5 million mark.
Panel on South African Fiction and Autobiography
Authors: Mphahlele Ezekiel , Nazareth Peter , Obiechina Emmanuel
Published: May 2006

I will not say much about autobiography in South Africa because it’s a given. It’s the kind of thing that has emerged naturally from South African conditions, and in fact, we are seeing it emerge all over Africa as a literature of self-definition. It has become a peculiar genre in Africa, a genre that depicts the very social conditions that have given rise to it.

My remarks this morning will be concerned mostly with the novel. This is a more problematic genre in South Africa than in other parts of Africa, and we may need a long time to debate and discuss the issues surrounding it.

Before I go on, however, I would like to add to what Mazisi said this morning, even though it is not connected with my talk. I want to say this by way of preface. Since we are talking about South Africa, we need to know that we are talking about African people rather than about ethnic groups, rather than about “tribes.”
Panel on Contemporary South African Poetry
Authors: Serote Mongane Wally , Mtshali Oswald , Egudu Romanus , Ndu Pol
Published: May 2006

The only was I can describe black South African writing is to say it’s a very tragic thing in its own way because of what is happening in South Africa. The writing seems to have no continuity; usually when we talk about black South African writing, we start around the sixties, but I think it started long before then. We have people writing in Setswana, Sevenda, Shangaan, Xhosa, and many other indigenous languages, and I’m sure that up to now we still aren’t fully aware of the wealth of literature written in those languages.

When I started writing, it was as if there had never been writers before in my country. By the time I learned to write, many people—Zeke, Kgositsile, Mazisi Kunene, Dennis Brutus—had left the country and were living in exile.
Panel on South African Theater
Authors: Brutus Dennis , Mphahlele Ezekiel , Pieterse Cosmo , Jeyifous Abiodun , Aidoo Ama Ata
Published: May 2006

Dr. Ezekiel Mphahlele spoke at the end of the session yesterday, and since there is considerable misunderstanding about at least one of the points he made, he has offered to make a clarification this morning.

Yesterday I got the impression that people left the meeting under the impression that I was trying to be an iconoclast and trying to bust things up. I am always considered to be a bull in a china shop. But far be it from me to want to bust people’s games up. Just before I spoke, my longstanding friend from the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, Donatus Nwoga, said the same things in so many words, expressing a wish that he could be back home.