Decolonize this
To undo the misrepresentation of women of color in global media, we need a historically grounded solidarity.
Culture
In the company of coronavirus
What literature can teach us about what happens when the chain that connects human beings to nature is broken.
The most humanistic socialist of our generation
The mathematician Edwin Madunagu, 75 years old in 2021, is one of Nigeria’s foremost socialist intellectuals. Here, his friend Biodun Jeyifo, the literary scholar, pays tribute to him.
What is the value of pan-Africanism for psychology?
How psychologists can and should become advocates for African and African feminist critiques of academia and of society.
Another hero falls
Eric “Bucs” Damons existed beyond the frame of the narrow scope of the elite South African sporting narrative.
Makeshift modernity
The rise of African Speculative Fiction and other exciting cultural production indicates that modernity is not an exercise in “catching up” with Europe, but an entirely new condition.
Can we reclaim football from below?
The mafia-style control of South African football, from the Premier Soccer League on down, means a dearth of development and enduring loss for the national team.
Life as young black men in Johannesburg
The South African rap duo, Stiff Pap’s art is of the internet age: Their debut, TUFF TIME$, is at once unmistakably authentic, and entirely new.
Breaking the shackles
Ghana is slowly developing its mental health care to protect human rights. Yet sensationalist journalism, including in the progressive media, continues to portray the treatment of mental health in the country as backward and abusive.
Clubbing in Cairo
Africa Is a Country Radio is back with a new season focused on African club culture. Our first stop is Cairo with Egyptian music journalist Maha El Nabawi. Listen on Worldwide FM.
An oblique public voice
Revisiting the films of Malian-born author and filmmaker Manthia Diawara.
The music industry and vaccine apartheid
Music’s ingratiating moral mask has withered, revealing a disfigured face whose true ethical philosophy is, as Lauryn Hill once noted, “paper thin.”
When the war is over
In his new book, the Ugandan academic Mahmood Mamdani argues that breaking cycles of violence requires collective action. He finds hope in the unfinished project of South Africa's anti-apartheid struggle.
Africa’s lost psychiatrists
Many of the continent’s most highly trained mental health professionals migrate outside Africa. The result, sadly, makes global inequalities in access to mental health, worse.
Unmasking Nigerian elites
In the Nigerian film 'La Femme Anjola,' which delights with brilliant performances, no one is exactly who they seem.
The circus of peer-reviewed publications
Academic journals pride themselves on “blind peer-review.” However, what if all that’s blind is the reckoning with inherent systemic discrimination?
Story maps of no location
Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian-American painter, defies expectations that artists of color should produce representational work.
The border between Africa and Spain
The film Adú justly calls attention to Europe’s closed borders, but neglects to examine why people are migrating from Africa.
Diagnostic dilemmas
The increasing visibility of Qur’anic healing in Cairo intersects with psychiatry’s growing foothold in public awareness, creating fertile ground for debates about affliction, care, and expertise.
Fractured dreams: The life of a Libyan exile
Muammar Gaddafi occupies a contested space in the histories of postcolonial Africa. What about his Libyan opponents?