Co-sponsored by Center for European Studies, Black Cultural Center of African Cultural Studies, Institute for Regional & International Studies, Latin American, Liberian & Caribbean Studies, Department of History, Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Anonymous Fund, Jay & Ruth N. Halls Fund, Interdisciplinary Program for Theatre Studies, and University Lectures
Join us for the culminating event as we continue to have open, informed and spirited dialogues across genres, medias & discipline!
“A Festival of Ideas” will be a series of roundtables featuring creative artists and scholars that will serve as platforms for a combination of brief prepared remarks followed by wide-ranging conversations on several topics, such as the role and impact of cultural expressions on the transition from variants of “Afro-Marxism” to neoliberalism, the enduring impact and multifaceted repercussions of armed liberation struggles and civil wars, the political and cultural links and ramifications of the independence struggles in Luso-Africa and the rest of the continent, and more.
We hope to spark open, informed, stimulating, and even spirited dialogues about the road that Lusophone African countries have traveled since 1975 and the paths ahead.
The event features artists and academics from and of Lusophone Africa. Come join in conversation with Kalaf Epalanga (musician + writer), Conceição Lima (poet), Rogério Manjate (actor + playwright), Lucrécia Paco (actor), and Paula Nascimento (architect+curator) and more.
Program Overview
Friday, April 25: 2pm-8pm
2pm: Opening Remarks
2:30pm-4pm: Nation
4:30pm-6pm: Environment
6pm-8pm: Dinner and Tucker DJ Playlist Talk
Conceição Lima
Conceição Lima is a journalist, poet, and writer from São Tomé and a founder of the National Union of Saotomean Writers and Artists. She worked for many years as a journalist for the BBC Portuguese language service and has an MA in African Studies and Sub-Saharan African Politics and Government from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She is the most translated Saotomean writer and her works have been published in German, Arab, Spanish,Turkish, Gallegan, Serbo-Croatian, French, and Italian.
More about Conceição Lima here.
Kalaf Epalanga
Kalaf Epalanga is an Angolan writer, musician, and producer. His band Buraka Som Sistema took the electronic music world by storm in the early 2000s. His 2017 novel Também Os Brancos Sabem Dançar was published in English in 2023. The blog Brittle Paper listed it on its top 100 notable books by African writers in 2023.
More about Kalaf Epalanga here.
Paula Nascimento
Paula Nascimento is an Angolan architect and curator. She curated the Golden Lion winningAngolan pavilion Luanda: Encyclopedic City at the Venice Biennial in 2013. She has curated thework of contemporary artists from the Portuguese-speaking African countries like Rene Tavares, Yonamine, Edson Chagas, Mónica de Miranda, and Januario Jano, among many others.
More about Paula Nasimento here.
Lucrécia Paco
Lucrécia Paco is Mozambican actor and theatre founder. Born in the late colonial period, she became an actor after independence in the theatre groups that sprung up in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. In the mid’1980s she helped found the theatre group Mutumbela Gogo, Mozambique’s first professional troupe.
Rogério Manjate
Rogério Manjate is an actor, theater director, and filmmaker from Mozambique, and the author of poetry and fiction. To date, he has published the short story collections Amor Silvestre (2002), O coelho que fugiu da história (2010), and Wazi (2011), in addition to the poetry collections Casa em Flor (2004) and Cicatriz encarnada (2017). Cicatriz encarnada was a finalist for the Glória de Sant’Anna Prize. Manjate has also produced documentary films and one award-winning short film, I Love You.