SHERMAN, TEXAS -- Austin College will host a Southern Africa Symposium “From Colonialism to Globalization” Wednesday and Thursday, March 31 and April 1. Four speakers will make presentations in two sessions (below). All lectures are free and open to the public. For information, call the Lectures Office at (903) 813-2210. The SessionsWednesday, March 31, 4:30 p.m., Ida Green Communication Center, Room 112 “From Imbube to Wimmoweh: Globalization from the Periphery and Back” by Zolano Ngwane “Peace and Democracy Music in the Early 1990s: The Role of Music in Southern African Culture” by Scott Bryant Thursday, April 1, 11 a.m., Hoxie Thompson Auditorium of Sherman Hall“Sex, Lies, and Family Values: Negotiating Frontiers in 18th Century South Africa,” by Laura Mitchell “Guided by Voices: A 19th Century Prophecy and Its Afterlives” by Jennifer Wenzel The Presentations and Presenters Zolano Ngwane “From Imbube to Wommoweh: Globalization from the Periphery and Back”Ngwane, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Haverford College, has done significant study of African civilizations, including completion of his dissertation and publication of many articles on various elements of South African culture. He has traveled to South Africa with the National Youth Leadership Training Program and the Black Theology Project. He is working on research on adolescent heath in South Africa, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health. Ngwane earned a master’s degree in theology at Chicago Theological Seminary and a master’s and doctorate in anthropology at the University of Chicago. He completed his dissertation on “The Politics of Campus and Community in South Africa: An Historical Ethnography of the University of Fort Hare.” Ngwane’s presentation will follow the journey of a song composed in 1929 by a Zulu migrant laborer that became an international hit in the 1950s and then returned to South Africa as a lullaby. Scott Bryant“Peace and Democracy Music in the Early 1990s: The Role of Music in Southern African Culture” Bryant, a 1987 graduate of Austin College with majors in international studies and German, completed an M.B.A. at University of New Mexico – Albuquerque, with majors in international management, international management in Latin America, and management of technology. He studied in Frieburg, Germany, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, during his education and spent four years in Lesotho, Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1990s. Today, Bryant is owner and executive director of International Technology and Trade Ventures (ITTV) in New Mexico. He is also executive director of the Micro and Nanotechnology Commercialization Education Foundation and involved in other business development. His presentation will discuss the role of music in South African culture, particularly the peace and democracy movement music popular just before the country’s 1994 elections. · Laura Mitchell“Sex, Lies, and Family Values: Negotiating Frontiers in 18th Century South Africa” After completing a bachelor’s degree in history and French, Mitchell spent a year exploring African studies at the University of Cape Town as a rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar, completed master’s degrees in foreign service and in history at Georgetown University, then a master’s in African history, and finally, her doctoral degree in African history with a concentration on colonial Southern Africa, all at the University of California, Los Angeles. Mitchell is a member of the history faculty at the University of California, Irvine. Mitchell’s presentation will focus on a court case and the related personal interactions and societal views about a trial for an alleged case of incest more than 250 years ago. She began studying this case 11 years ago during the preparation of the doctoral dissertation. · Jennifer Wenzel“Guided by Voices: A 19th Century Prophecy and Its Afterlives” Wenzel earned a bachelor’s degree in English and history from Austin College in 1990 then completed a master’s in English at Indiana University. She completed her doctoral degree in English at the University of Texas at Austin, with a concentration in ethnic and Third World literatures Her dissertation was “Promised Lands: J.M. Coetzee, Mahasweta Devi, and the contested Geographies of South Africa and India.” Wenzel is a professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan. Wenzel’s presentation discusses a prophecy received by a young woman in 1856 that if her people killed all their cattle, the ancestors and better cattle would return. Many Xhosa people followed the prophecy and thousands of people died or lost their land. Wenzel looks at the prophecy and how that has been re-imagined in South African literature and culture in the time since. She discusses whether a spectacularly failed prophecy can be recuperated to provide images of hope and resistance in support of later decolonization movements and the struggle against apartheid. The symposium is sponsored by the Austin College Lilly Program, Black Expressions, Heritage of Western Culture, and the Austin College Speakers Fund. The event honors Henry Bucher, Austin College chaplain and associate professor of humanities, who will retire from Austin College in May. Bucher’s research has focused on African studies and he has made many trips to the continent. Austin College, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), is an independent, liberal arts college of 1,300 students located 60 miles north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Chartered in November 1849, it is the oldest college in Texas under original charter and name as recognized by the State Historical Survey Committee. Austin College is included in Loren Pope's Colleges That Change Lives, ranked among the “Best 351 Colleges” in the 2004 Princeton Review, and profiled in the 2004 edition of Kaplan's Insiders Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges.