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Come and join the African Studies Program to welcome in the new academic year. Meet staff, affiliated faculty and fellow students and discuss the program, events for the year and opportunities for engagement!

A presentation by Victoria Nalongo, Founder & CEO of Bright Kids Uganda Victoria will be discussing the war in northern Uganda and the impact the war has had on children and communities. Why has the war gone on for almost 20 years without any end in sight? Victoria will talk about the causes and contributing factor to the continuation of the war as well as identification of potential opportunities for bringing peace to the region.

Join us for a round table discussion with Victoria Namusisi Nalongo, Founder & CEO of Bright Kids Uganda and Justin Forzano, Founder & CEO of Cameroon Football Development Program (FDP). Both speakers are professionals in the field of international development who will be talking about internships and volunteer opportunities for students in Africa.

In 1968, the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) was created as the University of Pittsburgh’s encompassing framework for all its multidisciplinary international programs. To commemorate our 50th anniversary, we will be holding a celebration open to both the University and larger Pittsburgh community.

Join us for an afternoon of international performances, sweet treats from around the globe, children’s activities, and more!

Nisi Shawl will present on themes that surround her recent novel "Everfair" which is set in an alternative future of the Congo. Please join us for an interesting conversation!

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.

Come here about your fellow ASP students' summer experiences in Africa. Whether it be in the Tanzania, Ghana or South Africa study abroad programs, the Uganda field-based internship program, or independent research and learning, your fellow students have some amazing stories to tell. This is a great opportunity for you to learn about options and logistics if you are contemplating studying or working abroad in Africa this coming summer!

Dr. Oni is a visiting professor at Robert Morris University this fall. He specializes in Sociology of Education. His area of research focus includes; social problems in education, Social change in education, social deviances/social disorganizations in education with particular focus on students’ secret cult in Nigeria.

In “Oktyabr (October)” (1993) and “Rostov-Luanda” (1998), the Mauritanian film director Abderrahmane Sissako shines a light on the experiences of African students in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Sissako, like many young Africans at the time, studied in the Soviet Union in the 1980s on a “Socialist Friendship” scholarship, making these two very different films, one a work of fiction, the other a pseudo-documentary, divergent experiments in documenting the displaced self. Working within the frameworks of diasporic intimacy and queer diaspora, this talk explores “Oktyabr” and “Rostov-Luanda” as meditations on the uniquely constructed intinerancy of black communities in the Soviet Union, a distinctly "queer" transience all the more intensified by the peripatetic nature of student life.