Events

The Walter Rodney Seminar series was inaugurated in the fall of 1977 at the initiative of two doctoral candidates in the BU political science department. It was named after Walter Rodney, the Guyanese scholar and political activist murdered in his native country in 1980, whose best-remembered book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), has long been considered a classic in African studies.

Over the past several decades, the Walter Rodney Seminar has brought more than five hundred guest speakers to the BU African Studies Center. The lecture series is interdisciplinary and has included presentations by established and incipient scholars in all Africa-related disciplines, encompassing the arts, humanities, social sciences, public health, and beyond.

The seminars are a keystone of the weekly activities of the African Studies Center, held most Mondays during the academic calendar from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm in the center’s William O. Brown Seminar Room (Rm 505, 232 Bay State Road).

View our line-up for the Spring 2023 semester here and on our Calendar. Sign up for our Weekly Brief email to stay updated on event announcements. You can find a a list of our past lectures here. Select past lectures available for streaming on our YouTube channel.

The Bradford Morse Distinguished Lectureship at Boston University has been established through the generous support of the Industry Council for Development and in recognition of the contribution of the Honorable Bradford Morse to international peace through development. Mr. Morse, an alumnus of BU and BU School of Law, joined the United Nations in 1972. From 1976 to 1986, he served as the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, the major source of United Nations development assistance to developing countries, including those of sub-Saharan Africa. The lectureship also acknowledges Mr. Morse’s role as founder of the United Nations Office for Emergency Operations, which organized the successful international relief effort to combat the severe droughts ravaging Ethiopia and the Sudan in the mid-1980s.

 

The first annual Bradford Morse lecture, “Africa Beyond the Famine: The Case for Hope,” was delivered by Maurice F. Strong, president of the World Federation of United Nations Associations. Mr. Strong had a long and distinguished career in private and public affairs, served as founding president of the Canadian International Development Research Commission, and was the founding executive director of the United National Environment Program. First appointed undersecretary-general of the United Nations in 1970, Mr. Strong also served as executive coordinator of the United National Office for Emergency Operations in Africa from 1985 to 1986. During this period, he worked closely with Bradford Morse.

You can find the list of our past Bradford Morse Distinguished Lecture here.

The Annual Graduate Conference in African Studies began in 1992, and since has served as a meeting place for up and coming scholars in African studies. The conference is organized and run entirely by BU graduate students who are studying in a wide array of fields. Details on the next graduate conference can be found here.