Call for volunteer presenters to the Seventh Africanist Forum
The Seventh Africanist Graduate Forum will be held at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen on Friday 18 May at the Centre of African Studies and is now calling for volunteers to present at the forum.
The Africanist Graduate Forum is aimed at offering space to those PhD scholars working on Africa-related research topics: to present and receive feedback on your own work, find out about the work of other PhDs (and other Africanist scholars), to meet one another, and generally network and share information within the frame of Africanist scholarship and relevant Africa-related activities in the region.
The Forum is provided for PhD scholars within the wider Copenhagen and Øresund regions, but welcomes presentations and participation from visiting PhD scholars from anywhere. We encourage senior scholars to inform all relevant PhD students – your own and others as well as visiting PhDs – about this event.
Presenting at the Forum
As with the five previous events, volunteers from among the PhDs are invited to present a paper on a selected dimension of your work. This could either be a chapter from the thesis, or a presentation on a particular question or theme or dilemma you are dealing with, and on which you would like engaged feedback. The aim is not to present something especially polished, but rather to use the opportunity to work through/test out an idea or approach or argument or material that you might be struggling with.
The format allows for presentation of maximum three PhD papers, each having 45 minutes to a full hour (depending on the programme): up to 30 minutes for presentation and 15- 30 minutes for open discussion. So far we have not included discussants as it keeps the discussion more open, but this is an option if an individual presenter wishes to invite someone specific in this role. In that case the presentation would be reduced to 25 minutes presentation, 5-10 minutes comments from the discussant, and then 15-25 minutes open discussion.
Those who wish to volunteer to present should do so as soon as possible, and no later than by FRIDAY 5 APRIL. It will work broadly on a first-come first-serve basis but other factors may be taken into account in selecting the presenters.
If you wish to make a presentation, please write to Amanda Hammar (at: aha@teol.ku.dk) with a proposed title and short abstract of what you wish to present, also indicating your institution, the name of your supervisor, for how long you have been doing the PhD, and where you are in your process. Please also indicate if you are likely to have an actual paper to circulate in advance, which is preferable if possible but not required.
Soon after the deadline, the presenters will be announced if there is a slot allocated to you. And soon after that we will circulate a programme for the event.
If you aren’t in a position to present this time round, there will be other opportunities to do so in the future within the ongoing framework of the Forum. However, we hope very much that you would attend the event even if not presenting.
Informing about participation With regard to the Forum itself, while there is no registration process, we would be grateful if you could inform us if you intend to participate by FRIDAY 4 MAY since we offer drinks and snacks after the event. Please send a mail about your attendance or any other general queries to our student assistant at: studcas@teol.ku.dk