AfroGEEKS
Global Blackness and the Digital Public SphereMay 19 – 21, 2005
SCHEDULED SPEAKERSMilton Aineruhanga holds a Masters Degree in Economic Policy and Planning. He is Program Officer of Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET), whose mission is to promote and support the use of ICTs by women and women’s organisations in Uganda. In addition, he is a member of the select committee developing the Uganda e-government strategy framework. He also represents WOUGNET, and the civil society in general, on the Uganda National WSIS Taskforce. The taskforce is charged with the responsibility of preparing and presenting Uganda’s position with regard to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS – www.itu.int/wsis). He is also a member of the FOSSFA secretariat. The Foundation for Free and Open Source Software in Africa (FOSSFA – www.fossfa.net) is promoting the adoption and use of free and open source software by governments, civil society and the private sector in Africa.
Jude G. Akudinobi teaches in the departments of Black Studies and Film Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His essays on African cinema have appeared in Iris, The Black Scholar, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Social Identities, Third Text, Research in African Literatures, amongst other journals and anthologies. Dr. Akudinobi is the founding film editor of the scholarly journal, African Identities, and was the guest editor of a ‘special issue’ on African Cinema for Social Identities. Currently, at work on an anthology (with N. Frank Ukadike) and two book-length manuscripts on African Cinema, he has written a number of screenplays including an adaptation (with Gerard Pigeon) of Aime Cesaire’s The Black Tempest, and is completing a short documentary, Retracing Historical Signatures.
Mark Dacosta Alleyne is Associate Director of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center. He has had an extensive career in international affairs as a scholar, writer, broadcaster and administrator. Prior to entering academe he worked for Caribbean media and was a freelance broadcaster for the BBC World Service in London in the Topical Tapes and Caribbean services. He has taught at Hampshire College, The American University, Loyola University-Chicago (where he was Director, National Center for Freedom of Information Studies), and the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), where he was a member of the graduate faculty. He held the prestigious Research Fellowship at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, Columbia University, 1993-94. He is the author of three scholarly books æ International Power and International Communication (1995); News Revolution: Political and Economic Decisions About Global Information (1997) which was nominated for the Outstanding Book Award by the International Communication Section of the National Communication Association; and Global Lies? Propaganda, the UN and World Order (2003). He has traveled extensively in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and South America and is bilingual in Spanish and English. His current research projects include a book, Propaganda Against Hate.
Nicole Anderson is an Irvine Doctoral Fellow 2004-2006 and Professor of African History and Media Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Her research interests focus on studies of Black spectatorship and audience engagement with Black cinemas and other media in both the American and African contexts. In addition to her interests in contemporary African American media consumption and its ensuing debates, Nicole is currently completing a doctoral thesis at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign that examines early West African film criticism and African film spectatorship in the Sahel (Senegal, Mali and Niger) from 1960-1980.
Chika Anyanwu heads the Media Department of the University of Adelaide in South Australia. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the Leslie Center Humanities Institute at Dartmouth College on “Cyber-Disciplinarity”. Previously, Dr Anyanwu was Head of Mass Communications Department at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He has also taught internationally, at the University of Ibadan and Usman Dan Fodio University (formerly University of Sokoto) in Nigeria, Flinders University of South Australia and the University of Papua New Guinea where he helped set up and headed the Media Arts Program. His research and publications cut across many aspects of the media from Theatre, Television and Film to New Media. He has documented many cultural practices of Papua New Guinea; co-produced a documentary on African-Australian cultural relations (2000); and in 2002 completed a research documentation of the Ghanaian film industry. He is also a playwright and theatre director with such important stage play as Bung Wan Taim (1993) (“Lets get together”), based on the crises in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Chika's research in new media technology led to the first Humanities program titled Cybermedia at Curtin University of Technology in 1998. He is currently working on four major projects: Virtual African Diaspora, Internet Connectivity among Senior Citizens in Australia, Creative Industries in South Australia and Content Regulation in New Media Environment.
Patrick Awuah is the founder and president of Ashesi University, a small private institution that has quickly gained an excellent reputation for innovation and quality education in Ghana. Ashesi University, which began instruction in March 2002, is modeled after Swarthmore and has principal strengths in business, economics and computer science. Prior to founding Ashesi University, Mr. Awuah served for eight years as a Program Manager in the Business Systems Division of Microsoft Corporation. He holds bachelor degrees in Engineering and Economics from Swarthmore College, and an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. In 2004, Swarthmore awarded Patrick an honorary doctorate in recognition of his leadership in African higher education. He is a fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative (a project of The Aspen Institute, Databank, and Technoserve) and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy, and the Tau Beta Pi national honor society for excellence in engineering.
Ayi Georges Ayayi-Moni is Executive Director of the Advanced Institute of Science Studies (IFHES) and a PhD candidate at the University of McGill in Montreal, Canada. His current research topic is “communication systems in the legal bodies of indigenous people in Africa and America.” He holds a Master’s degree in law and a post graduate diploma in communication, and speaks French, German, and English.Frederick Backman is a video and photojournalist from Cape Town, South Africa who is currently located in Santa Barbara, California. A graduate of the University of Cape Town and UNESCO, he has had photo exhibitions in South Africa and the United States illustrating the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994 and the experience of exiled South Africans living abroad. He is currently the Co-Director of the Institute for Revolutionary Multi Media Arts (IRMMA) where he is trying to secure funding to create digital editing labs in grassroots organizations worldwide. Frederick has worked as a Computer Network Technologist for the College of Letters and Science at UCSB and has produced several political documentaries and satires for Zeituna Productions.
Guy Berger has been the head of the department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa since 1994. Jailed as a political prisoner (1980-1983), and later forced into exile (1985-1990), he is active in media training and press freedom networks in southern Africa, and was twice elected as deputy chair of the South African National Editors Forum, (2002-4). He represents SANEF on the Mappp-Seta, an industry training body. Berger initiated the New Media Lab at Rhodes and the Sol Plaatje Media Leadership Institute. He also secured five funded chairs in the department. In 2000, he won a Fulbright scholarship to the USA to research "African journalism training in an age of globalization and the Internet." In 2001/2, he secured a Fulbright Alumni Initiative Award. In 2003, he oversaw the acquisition of the community newspaper Grocotts' Mail as a novel training platform for students and a service to the local community. He has a PhD from Rhodes University (1989), and his research covers: media coverage of poverty; multi-media and new media issues; media policy issues; the impact of media training; South Africa's alternative press; African media and democracy; and race and the media. He speaks English and Afrikaans and is currently learning isiXhosa.
Ben R. Caldwell, the creative force behind KAOS Network, a new underground media house, has more than 20 years experience as a producer, director, editor, writer, and teacher in the theatrical, documentary and television field. Mr. Caldwell received his M.F.A. in Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles and a B.A. in photography from Arizona State University. In addition, he has participated in various internships, most notably with Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities and currently directs and teaches the California Institute of the Arts Community Arts Partnership Youth Digital Arts program at KAOS Network and Plaza de la Raza.
Jorge Coelho is currently the Advisor to the Minister of Infrastructure in his native country of São Tomé e Príncipe, Africa, where he works on various projects related to the country’s structural and economic development. During the 2003-2004 academic year he was the post-graduate researcher for the Center for Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, carrying out on-site research on the use of digital technology in São Tomé. Mr. Coelho graduated from Moscow State University in 1985 with a bachelor in Economics and went on to receive a Master in Business Administration (1995) and a Master in Library and Information Science (2002) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also a former Fulbright Fellow (1993-1996) and is fluent in five languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Russian).
Mark Dery is a cultural critic. He is the author of Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century (1996) and The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink (1999). His seminal essay, "Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of Signs" popularized the guerrilla media tactic known as "culture jamming"; widely republished on the Web, it remains the definitive theorization of this subcultural phenomenon. In Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture (1993), an academic anthology he edited, Dery coined the term "Afrofuturism" and kick-started the academic interest in black technoculture, cyberfeminism, and cyberstudies in general. A San Diego homeboy, he is currently writing a series of essays on the cultural psyche of Southern California, from its white suburban badlands to its increasingly Latino borderlands. Dery teaches in the Department of Journalism at New York University, where he is director of digital journalism.
Torkwase Dyson is a painter and digital media artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Her work in digital video and photography explores the body as a space for performing multiple gender roles, specifically ways in which masculinity is articulated on the feminine body. Torkwase earned her MFA from Yale University in 2003 and is currently a guest lecturer at Spelman College. Torkwase’s style in performance has been said to possess a microscopic aesthetic, focusing upon and magnifying everyday sensual experiences. By gathering material—associations, moments of disassociation— from these tangible experiences, she develops a collage of images and reproduces them in sound, live movement, and digital media. Her most recent curatorial project, Again? Again!: New Media Artists Examining the Value of Repetition in a Media Economy, investigates the epistemology of repetition as it resonates in visual culture, traditional African aesthetics, and spirituality. She is the winner of the Berry Cohen Scholarship award for artists working in New York and the Paul Harper Residency at Vermont Studio Center Prize, given for excellence in painting.
Clarence A. Ellis is Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Collaboration Technology Research Group at the University of Colorado. At Colorado, he is a member of the Institute of Cognitive Science. He is involved in research and teaching of groupware, workflow systems, CSCW, coordination theory, operating systems, and social informatics. Dr. Ellis has worked as a researcher and developer at MCC, Xerox PARC, Bull Corp, the Institute for the Future, Bell Telephone Labs, IBM, Los Alamos Scientific Labs, and Argonne National Lab. His academic experience includes teaching at Stanford University, MIT, University of Texas, Stevens Institute of Technology, Johannes Kepler Institute in Austria, and at Chiaotung University in China. Clarence (Skip) Ellis is on the editorial board of numerous journals, and has been an active instigator and leader of a number of computer associations and functions; he has been a member of the National Science Foundation Computer Science Advisory Board; chairman of the NSF Information Technology and Organizations working committee; and chairman of the ACM Special Interest Group on Office Information Systems. Skip Ellis has published over 100 technical papers, written several books, lectured in more than two dozen countries, and was selected, in 1998, as an ACM Computer Society Fellow.Kevin Franklin is Deputy Director of the University of California Humanities Research Institute and a former Deputy Director of the University of California San Diego Supercomputer Center. He serves as co-chair for the Humanities, Arts and Social Science Research Group for the Global Grid Forum and is a member of the UC Humanities Technology Council, and the Worldwide University Network Grid Advisory Committee. Dr. Franklin coordinates UCHRI research and development activities at the interface of the humanities, arts, science and technology.
Alison Fraunhar is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in Art History. Her areas of scholarly interest include postcolonial theory, film and media, Latin American visual culture, and Cuba. She has received the Murray Roman Fellowship, among other grants and awards, and her article “Tropics of Desire: Envisioning the Mulata Cubana” is forthcoming in Emergences: Journal for the Study of Media and Composite Cultures.
Raiford Guins is a Founder and Principal Editor for the Journal of Visual Culture and a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Screen Media at the University of the West of England. He received his Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from the University of Leeds, and his research interests include technoculture and race, media theory and history, and the study of computer games.
Michael Hanson recently completed a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently an assistant professor of communication at the University of California, San Diego, his work examines the cultural politics of black expressive practices, particularly music, sound, space and identity.
Kenanna C. Hawkins is a fourth year English major at Depaul University in Chicago. Though reading literature is a primary interest, she has begun to dabble in fiction writing as well. She is also an advocate of organic and sustainable agricultural practices and talks to people about recognizing these important issues. Some of her other interests include traveling, cooking and various outdoor activities.
Jarita Holbrook is a leading scholar in African cultural astronomy. She earned degrees in physics, astronomy, and astronomy & astrophysics from the California Institute of Technology, San Diego State University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz; where she was either the first African American and/or first African American woman to obtain a degree in the subject at each institution. She joined the faculty of the University of Arizona in 2002 after completing an NSF funded postdoc in the cultural studies of science at UCLA and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Dr. Holbrook's current research examines the intersection of cultural astronomy, agriculture, and sustainability in Africa. She is currently a Fulbright Senior Specialist and is organizing a conference to coincide with the 2006 eclipse.Ulysses Jenkins is a video/performance artist and holds an M.F.A. in Intermedia-Video/Performance Art from Otis College of Art and a B.A. in Fine Arts- Painting/Drawing from Southern University. Mr. Jenkins has taught video production (lecturer) at the University of California San Diego (1979-81’), Otis College of Art (1982-84’) and performance art at California State University Dominguez Hills (1981). He currently is an Associate Professor at the University of California Irvine; in the Claire Treavor School of the Arts, Department of Studio Art (1993-2005) in video art production and performance art instruction and as an affiliate professor with the African-American Studies program in the Department of Humanities at the University of California Irvine. Mr. Jenkins has received numerous awards and distinctions, including National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships for Video Art in 1980,1982 & 1995, and the California Arts Council's Multi-Cultural Entry Grant as director of Othervisions Studio, an interdisciplinary media arts production group 1987-89 and 1993-97 and 1999-2002. Career highlights include an exhibition entitled , “Race in Digital Space” at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, 2001, The Studio Museum in Harlem, NYC, NY, 2002 and Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA 2002-2003.
Michael Joko is a native of Cameroon in West Africa, and studied law in Cameroon and South Africa. In his practice his focus has been on policies and laws that affect the impact of the entrance of black businesses and their competitiveness into the South African economy post-apartheid. He is currently a corporate law consultant for Siwendu, Ngakane and Partners in South Africa.
Dawn Joseph is a photographer and graphic designer with a keen interest in motion and sound. She received a BFA in both photography and graphic design from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001. While a design student at the University, she traveled abroad to Luzern, Switzerland where she further studied typography and design at the Horshule Fur Gestalt und Kunst Luzern. While there, one of her poster designs was selected to be displayed throughout the city of Luzern. In her senior year of college, she created a series of photographs titled "something black" which were purchased by the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was a second place winner in one of the Chicago Association of African American photographers annual "Shoot Out" contest. She is presently working on her MFA in graphic design at the Yale School of Art.
Mélanie Knight is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies and collaborative program in Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto. Her areas of interest include: formal and informal economy, transnationalism, racially gendered division of labour and the black diaspora. Her publications include "Black Canadian Self-Employed Women in the Twenty-First Century: A Critical Approach," Canadian Woman Studies/les cahiers de la femme, Vol. 23, No. 2, 104-110. Mélanie has also appeared on Ondes Africaines which is televised worldwide to discuss the politics of education and labour of black women in Canada.
Guisela Latorre is an assistant professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her area of expertise is modern Latin American and contemporary Chicana/o art. Her recent publications include “Heterogeneity in California Chicana/o Muralism" in JAST: Journal of American Studies of Turkey (Fall 2000), and "Gender, Muralism and the Public Sphere: Chicana Muralism and Indigenist Aesthetics" in Disciplines on the Line: Feminist Research on Spanish, Latin American, and Latina Women (2003). She is currently working on a book entitled Walls of Empowerment: California Chicana/o Murals and Indigenist Aesthetics, 1970-2000 which is under advance contract with the University of Texas Press.
George Lewis, improvisor-trombonist, composer and computer/installation artist, studied composition with Muhal Richard Abrams at the AACM School of Music, and trombone with Dean Hey. The recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship in 2002, a Cal Arts/Alpert Award in the Arts in 1999, and numerous fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lewis has explored electronic and computer music, computer-based multimedia installations, text-sound works, and notated forms. A member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, Lewis's work as composer, improvisor, performer and interpreter is documented on more than 120 recordings. His oral history is archived in Yale University’s collection of “Major Figures in American Music,” and his published articles on music, experimental video, visual art, and cultural studies have appeared in numerous scholarly journals and edited volumes. His forthcoming book, Power Stronger Than Itself: The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, will be published by the University of Chicago Press. In the Fall of 2004, Lewis will become the Edwin H. Case Professor of Music at Columbia University.
Ndesanjo Macha is a Tanzania lawyer, writer, poet, sociologist, and blogger. His research interests are the intersection of policy, politics, culture, society, and information technology, online African communities/digital Disapora, the digital divide, community technology, e-democracy, and e-government trends in Africa, online journalism, Pan-Africanism in the Information Age, African blogs, and Kiswahili rap. He monitors information revolution in Africa through his blog, DigitalAfrica and runs the first blog in an African language, Jikomboe. Ndesanjo has lived and worked in Southern Africa and the US. He is currently teaching at the School for International Training (SIT) in the Center for Intercultural Programs. He was the assistant editor for the journal Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. He is currently the editor for Visions, a newsletter of ALANA, a community organization in Brattleboro, Vermont. He is working on a book about identity, gender, politics, and culture in African blogsphere.
Maria McCloy is co-owner of Black Rage Productions, a Johannesburg, South Africa based multi media company. She helped found the company as a Rhodes University journalism student and has been documenting South African urban culture since 1995. She is the editor of South Africa’s first urban culture website, www.rage.co.za, and has herself been a part of the South African urban scene, including creating documentaries on urban culture round the continent as well as a documentary on the founding fathers of the unique urban music kwaito, having a weekly TV show titled Street Journal and a record label, Outrageous Records.
Rita Mijumbi-Epodoi is currently Acting Executive Director for Uganda Development Services, an NGO that seeks to make a significant contribution to the substantial reduction of rural poverty by providing appropriate information and training to improve rural livelihoods. She previously worked as Consultant for the International Women’s Tribune Centre to develop a CD-ROM for Rural Women Entrepreneurs for use at Telecentres in Uganda. Prior to that, she worked as Project Officer for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funded Acacia Programme in Uganda, whose main objective is to promote ICTs for Rural Development. She has been involved in pushing for gender mainstreaming in Uganda’s ICT policy and a number of ICT undertakings with Uganda Communications Commission, International Telecommunications Union, World Bank, NTCA-Washington, University of Guelph, AITEC and Uganda Development Gateway. She has, for the last six years, been directly involved with ICTs for Development Projects. She has a Master’s degree in Entrepreneurship Development and Management from Potchefstroom University in the Republic of South Africa.
Alondra Nelson is Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Yale University. Her research interests include race, gender, and technology; "race" and racialization in biomedicine and technoculture; futurism and speculative theory; new media and digital culture; African American social movements and health activism; and the social, cultural, and bioethical implications of genetic science. She is co-editor of Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (NYU Press) and editor of a special issue of the journal Social Text on the intersections of black culture and technoculture. Professor Nelson was recently named one of "13 Notable Blacks in Technology" by AOL BlackVoices.
Emmanuel Njenga Njuguna is the Project Coordinator of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)'s Africa ICT Policy Monitor Project. The project works with Africa civil society organisations to engage in information and communication technologies (ICTs) policy to promote an Information Society based on social justice and human rights. Njenga has been involved in monitoring, researching and analysing ICT policy environments in Africa for the last 5 years. He is also the editor of the 'Chakula' Newsletter as well as the popular Africa ICT Policy Monitor Website, http://africa.rights.apc.org. He has also been heavily involved in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, especially with the Africa civil society organizations. Njenga previously worked with SANGONeT, South Africa’s first internet service provider that works with ICTs for development. He holds a Masters degree in ICT from the University of Wollongong, Australia and a post graduate certificate in information and communication policy from University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He is also currently pursuing further studies in information and communication policy at the University of Wollongong, Australia.Mendi and Keith Obadike make music, literature and conceptual art. Their artwork has been exhibited internationally. Mendi and Keith have received awards from Franklin Furnace, the Connecticut Commission for the Arts, the Connecticut Critic’s Circle Award for Outstanding Sound Design, and others. Internet art works include: the sound piece The Uli Suite (1998-99), based on a Nigerian abstract painting form; the soundscape Sexmachines (2000) for Nam June Paik and James Brown; "Blackness for Sale" (2001), a performance in which they auctioned Keith’s blackness on eBay. Recent projects include a surround sound piece for DVD, The Pink of Stealth (for Electronic Arts Intermix and the New York African Film Festival), and an album, The Sour Thunder.
Ruth Ojimbo Ochieng holds an M.A. in Communication Policy Studies, a BSc in Information and Communication and a Diploma in Librarianship, and her background is in information science. She has worked with the Ministry of Justice in Uganda for 14 years. In November 1994 Ruth joined Isis-WICCE as Coordinator of the Information and Documentation Programme, a position she held until 1998, when she was promoted to the position of Director, Isis-WICCE – Ruth holds this position concurrently with that of Information and Documentation Coordinator. Ruth has coordinated several studies on women's experiences in situations of armed conflict, particularly in Uganda. She has also spearheaded the production of two visual documentaries: "Women War and Trauma" (2000), and "A Lingering Pain"(2002). She was part of the national team that conducted the UNESCO baseline study entitled "Towards the Formulation of a National and Communication Policy for Uganda". She belongs to many groups and associations, including the International Coordinating Committee of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) and Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice. She has published papers on women and communication, and is a committed human rights activist.
Sheila Petty is Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Professor of Media Studies at the University of Regina (Canada). She is also an Adjunct Scientist (New Media) at TRLabs, Regina. She has written extensively on issues of cultural representation, identity and nation in African and African diasporic cinema and new media. She has curated film, television and new media exhibitions for galleries across Canada. She has a forthcoming book on African diasporic film and a forthcoming monograph on the TV series, Law and Order. Her current research focuses on interdisciplinary investigations of new media narrative strategies. In particular, she is exploring the intersection of film-based montage theory and computer-based aesthetics. Leader of an interdisciplinary research group and New Media Studio Laboratory spanning Computer Science, Engineering and Fine Arts, she is the recipient of the 2001 University of Regina Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Research and a University of Regina President’s Scholar (2002-2004).
Kumi Rauf currently works at Novacoast in downtown Santa Barbara, where he is a computer programmer. He holds a B.S. in computer science from UCSB. While in college he was very active in the National Society of Black Engineers, holding the Treasurer and Co-chair positions over a period of four years. He now holds the T.O.R.C.H. (Technical OutReach Community Help) position for Region Six. He was also a part of BPRO (Black Pioneers Renaissance Organization), BSU (Black Student Union), and he ran track for 3 years.
Folake Shoga is a visual artist of Nigerian origin. Her twenty years of arts practice have been deeply informed by issues of race and gender and awareness of diasporic community. She has been involved with Community Arts and collaborative practice throughout her working life, seeking to uncover under-represented voices and points of view in a responsible and democratic manner. Her practice spans many media: installation, film and video, animation, photography, drawing and sculpture, and new media. She has been involved as a facilitator in projects promoting the creative use of new technology for groups that normally do not have the opportunity to use this medium, including publicizing the results of project work and encouraging debate of issues pertinent to the dissemination of new technology. She currently works at Watershed, curating a year-long programme of residencies for Black artists exploring their use of digital technology, and she has an MA in Fine Art in Social Context from UWE, 2000.Giovanni Singleton is a native of Richmond, VA. She received an MFA in Creative Writing and Poetics from The New College of California (San Francisco) and in 1999 she founded nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts. She has received fellowships from the Squaw Valley Community of Writer’s Workshop and the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Writers Workshop, and Cave Canem. She is the recipient of the 1999 New Langton Bay Area Award Show for Literature, and from 1997-2002 she served as a member of the Board of Directors for Small Press Traffic. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Five Fingers Review and Fence, and she has taught poetry in the San Francisco Unified School District and at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, CA.
Russell Stockard is an assistant professor of communication at California Lutheran University. He does research on globalization and communication, information technology and underserved communities, information and communication technologies (ICTs), NGOs and social movements, cultural studies, and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. He also has taught electronic media management and marketing at California State University, Northridge. He has served as a member of the International Advisory Board of Radio for Peace International, Colon, Costa Rica and has done broadcast journalism at the same station. He is the author of the African American Consumer Handbook.Llynn Taylor is President and CEO of icAfricaGlobal Media, which has developed a network of media outlets in over 34 African countries, and several in Europe and the Americas. He has over 30 years media experience, including radio news and advertising, television production and distribution. In 1974 he was appointed Managing Director for Motown Records in Africa, developing markets in over 10 African countries. Since 1983 he has developed television production and distribution companies, including Atlantis FilmWorks (USA), Euro American Pictures (Holland), World African Network (USA), InterCom Afrique Television (France), InterCom Video Distribution (Ivory Coast), Parkville Animation Productions (Wales), and AfriSat Television (South Africa).
Anne S. Walker has been Executive Director of the International Women’s Tribune Centre (IWTC) in New York for 27 years, and has worked with women worldwide on behalf of women’s human rights and gender equity at all levels of society. During that time she participated as an activist and organizer in the four UN world conferences on women and NGO Forums in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985) and Beijing (1995). One of the founders of IWTC, she has expertise and experience in global information networking, educational and training materials design and development, community organizing, and women and development issues at both policy and practical levels. She holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Education (Instructional Systems Technology) from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Anne is now based in Melbourne, Australia as IWTC’s Special Projects Coordinator with a special emphasis on work with rural women in Africa. She currently serves on the Committee of Management for the International Women’s Development Agency in Melbourne. In 2003 she was honored with awards from the Women’s Electoral Lobby and the Australian Council for Overseas Aid for her contribution to the global women’s movement and to international human rights. In 2004 she was inducted into the Kingswood College Hall of Fame and became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day Honours.Daphine M. Washington, originally from Chicago, Illinois, is a doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her current dissertation research examines the relationship between the Afro-Peruvian community, international development agendas and global processes.
Daphine M. Washington, originally from Chicago, Illinois, is a doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses primarily on the African presence in Latin America and includes the study of development, policy, ethnicity and identity, women’s studies, social networks and information technology. She holds a Bachelor’s of Philosophy in Anthropology from Northwestern University and a M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Florida. Her Master’s research concentrated on early transnational processes in the Afro-Cuban community in Tampa, Florida. Her current dissertation research examines the relationship between the Afro-Peruvian community, international development agendas and global processes. She is particularly interested in the present-day relationship between race, culture, representation and power with a clear understanding that knowledge of history is critical to understanding current identity politics.
Floyd Webb’s background includes global work in cinema, photojournalism, publishing and advertising. After a 10 year career as a photojournalist he was founder and creative director of the Blacklight Festival of International Black Cinema. From 1984-1995 the festival was one of the most critically acclaimed festivals of its kind. He was an associate producer of the award-winning Julie Dash film Daughters of the Dust (US 1992) and has worked most recently with British director Ian Hunt on The World of Nat King Cole, due for a summer 2005 release in the US. He has also worked with filmmakers such as Dave McKean, John Akomfrah, and Spike Lee. He is Creative Director of e22 Digital, a multimedia company he founded to pursue his particular interest in convergent media. His latest projects are working with 3GP video for mobile phones.
Elisa Joy White is an assistant professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. She completed a Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, where she also received a M.A. in African American Studies. Dr. White also holds an M.A. in Media Studies from the New School University and a B.A. in Theatre from Spelman College. She received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2000-2001 to conduct research in Ireland for her doctoral dissertation examining the emerging African Diaspora communities of Dublin. Her research interests include lesser-explored African Diaspora sites, the cultural dimensions of globalization, the construction of racial and ethnic identities, and new media studies. In addition to her work in academia, Dr. White has written, produced and performed theatrical, film, radio and television projects. Recent publications include: “A New Question: Are There Any Latent Irish Afrogeeks?” in Asyland (Magazine of the Irish Refugee Council), “The New Irish Storytelling: Media, Representations and Racialized Identities” in Racism and Anti-Racism in Ireland and “Forging African Diaspora Spaces in Dublin’s Retro-Global Spaces: Minority Making in a New Global City” in the journal City.
Kenneth M. Wyrick works as a Community Technology Advocate for California as a cybernetic artist that is supporting open source technology thru CTCs that enable further collaboration and sharing of educational resources. His specialties include developing community educational websites, producing multi-media presentations, and fostering community awareness collaborations.
AfroGEEKS Conference
UCSB Center for Black Studies
4603 South Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3140
Ph. 805.893.3914
Fax: 805.893.7243
Email: afrogeeks@cbs.ucsb.edu
