Faculty in the News
December 2011
Professor Ruha Benjamin weighs in on the Occupy Movement’s origins and future as panelist at a BU teach in on Wednesday Nov.30th 2011. To read the article, click here.
Professor Ruha Benjamin has been invited to speak at an International Conference on Contemporary Constructions of Race/Whiteness in a Comparative Perspective on Dec.19th,2011 at the University of Amsterdam. To learn more about this confrence, click here.
November 2011
Professors Linda Heywood and John Thornton attended this year’s African Studies Association Confrence ( the largest gathering of Africanist scholars and professionals) in Washington D.C. from Nov 17-19th. A thank you letter for their participation can be viewed here. click here.
Ruha Benjamin addressed over 450 students about BU’s history of human rights activism as part of the “Education Under Fire” film screening and panel discussion with human rights activist and actor Rainn Wilson, Amnesty International’s Northeast Regional Director, Josh Rubenstein, film director Jeff Kaufman, and adjunct professor of social work, Mojdeh Rohani. Prof. Benjamin, who helped organize and moderate the event, tied BU’s recognition of Iran’s grassroots university, the Bahá’í Institute of Higher Education (BIHE), to a longer history of BU supporting subordinated social groups’ right to education. Read more: click here.
Professor Ruha Benjamin will speak at a joint Symposium featuring BU and Warwick University entitled “Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitanism, and Alterity” on Nov 16th 2011 2-6 PM at the College of Arts & Sciences Bldg Rm. 222. For more information on this event, click here.
October 2011
BU Professors Linda Heywood and John Thornton were interviewed recently by Fox News about new research that identifies African American ancestry as stemming from 46 ethnic groups originating from three major regions in Africa. To see the interview, click here.
August 2011
Dr. John Thornton and Dr. Linda Heywood recently published “A Forgotten African Catholic Kingdom: A year before Columbus discovered America, the king of Kongo led his people to Christianity,” on The Root. To read the article, click here.
July 2011
Linda Heywood and John Thornton on St. James, religion, and the Kongo
Dr. Linda Heywood and Dr. John Thornton appear on Australian Broadcasting Company Radio to discuss St. James the Greater and the history of religion in the Kongo. Listen to the segment here.
Dr. Linda Heywood in front of a cafe in Angola named for Njinga
Interview with Linda Heywood on African Queen Njinga
BU Professor Linda Heywood was interviewed by TheWorld.org on her book about African Queen Njinga.
Queen Nzinga (also spelled Njinga) once ruled what is now the African nation of Angola. The seat of Queen Nzinga’s power was Angola’s largest city, where there’s still a statue of the 17th century Queen, in Kinaxixi Square.
“Njinga, she appears to be very tall, her head is lifted up so she’s looking out. She has bangles on her hand, also she has a battle axe. She was known for her military prowess. Noone could use the battle axe like Njinga,” says Linda Heywood who teaches African American studies at Boston University.
Email response to interview:
I heard the piece you did this afternoon on The World about Nzinga, and I found her story, and what you had to say about her, fascinating. In addition to writing historical fiction, I also write comic books — including one about a fictional African hero, Black Panther — and I’m convinced (admittedly based on very little information) that Nzinga’s story would make great material for an original graphic novel. I’m off to do research. Many thanks for the inspiration.
Best,
David Liss
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Linda Heywood comments on Walking Tours of Civil War Boston
Dr. Linda Heywood comments on the recent publication of Walking Tours of Civil War Boston in the Boston Globe. (Click here for the full article.)
April 2011
Postracialism at BU: Ruha Benjamin from On That Point on Vimeo.
Professor Ruha Benjamin discusses race in America and on college campuses after President Obama’s election in 2008.
On That Point is BUTV10′s award-winning current events discussion show, bringing questions, concerns, and thoughts about today’s most pressing issues to the people shaping them by asking expert guests the things students want to know.
Winter-Spring 2011
The Enduring Power of Queen Njinga: Four Centuries after Her Rule in Central Africa, A Woman Warrior Captures a Historian’s Passion
Excerpt from Bostonia - Boston University’s Alumni Magazine:
“Linda Heywood tells a story of how her elderly grandmother in Grenada, who raised the year-old baby after her mother died, would often repeat an inscrutable word that sounded like “boh-wah.” It wasn’t until many decades later, at a London archive dense with forgotten records, that Heywood held in her hands a faded document attesting to her Barbadian grandfather’s service in Her Majesty’s Navy in the Boer War. It turned out that her grandmother’s half-delirious chant resulted from her exhausting, but ultimately successful, bid to get the colonial government of Barbados to pay her the benefits due her husband, Joseph A. Maxwell, who died six months after his return from the front. “