Welcome to the 45th NYASA Conference

Welcome to the 45th special NYASA conference on May 22nd 2021!  

A Very special conference this year! For the first time since its creation in 1967, the New York African Studies Association (NYASA) organizes its yearly conference exclusively online. The 45th NYASA conference was initially planned to take place at Hamilton College this past April; the LOC led by the current NYASA vice President Dr. Claire Mouflard had a full support from their institution and Hamilton was ready to host NYASA. Then Covid-19 hit and the world including NYASA lost its references. NYASA had to reinvent itself; first we decided to turn the conference into a RETREAT at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the Africana Studies & Research Center was ready to host NYASA under the leadership of Eric Acree ; we also thought of NYASA joining the Robert Maxon Trans-National Africa conference at State University of New York, Cortland, during October 23-24, 2020. Covid-19 did compromise many of these NYASA’s plans but did not stop the organization from staying actively engaged and committed to its mission.

On June 9th 2020, NYASA issued an official Statement on Police brutality in lack communities in light of George Floyd’s cold-blooded killing by a White police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25th, 2020.

NYASA invited Dr. Mecke Nagel, Founding Editor-in- Chief of Wagadu and Dr. Bekeh Ukelina, Special Editor and Interim Book Review Editor of Wagadu to share their experience with the Board members about the possibilities for NYASA to create a peer-reviewed electronic journal. NYASA Newsletter, especially its issue #72 was a special one as it celebrates Dr. Tom Nyquist. Dr. Nyquist passed away in December 2019; he was one of the founding scholars of NYASA he led as President; thanks to him and to his wife Corinne, the first issue of the NYASA Newsletter was published in 1974. This April 2021, NYASA also mourned a friend and a colleague, Dr. Kwame Akonor; Dr. Akonor was an active long-standing member of the NYASA Executive Board; he led NYASA as President and was serving as a member of the Publishing Committee; Dr. Akonor organized the 2018 NYASA conference at Seton Hall University led the LOC.

NYASA has raised funds and set up a student scholarship to support undergraduate or early-career graduate students enrolled at an institution of higher education, in the U.S. or abroad; this scholarship will help facilitate their research on a specific project in Africana Studies or in a related field.

I would like to dedicate this conference to Dr. Tom Nyquist and to Dr. Kwame Akonor. Tom, Kwame, NYASA says Thank You, we miss you but know you will always be with us on the road to Africana studies for a better world. RIP!

Please register for FREE for this conference by clicking the button below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.