Insights from Portuguese Africa
The African Studies Center hosted Simmons University Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations Abel Djassi Amado March 18 for another in the Center’s Walter Rodney seminar series. Professor Amado, a BU PhD in Political Science and African Studies, spoke on “Anticolonial Nationalism in ‘Portuguese’ Africa and the Language Question.,”
Professor Amado focused on mainstream liberation movements in the former Portuguese colonies during their national liberation struggles. He critically mapped out the linguistic ideologies, practices, and institutions constructed by these movements during their national liberation armed struggle. A central aspect of Amado’s approach is to shed light on the main ideologies crafted to justify the role played by the Portuguese language, which explains its socio-political dominance after independence. The talk also discussed the fact these organizations were basically multilinguistic apparatuses; as such, an approach on the role played by bilingual individuals is warranted for a more complete history of national liberation.
The African Studies Center (ASC) at Boston University is one of the nation’s oldest leaders in promoting African language and area studies since its founding in 1953, with federal funding from the US Department of Education as a Title VI National Resource Center.
As a center for excellence for researching, learning, and teaching about Africa, the ASC provides opportunities for students and scholars across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences to pursue rigorous academic study and research engaging Africa, to learn African languages, and to participate in diverse programming outside of the classroom.
Learn more about the Center here.