Speaker addresses images of Africa

Africa is not the wasteland portrayed by many historians and journalists, argued history Prof. Frederick Cooper in a lecture given yesterday.

The lecture drew about 150 people to Rackham Amphitheater yesterday afternoon.

"Public discourse on Africa seems mired in the same stereotypes as 30 years ago, and public policy issues are debated as if the complexities that scholarship has revealed do not exist," Cooper said. "The Africa of backwardness, famines, ethnic hatred and wars is still with us."

The lecture, titled "Africa at Century's End: Representations and Explanations," was Cooper's inaugural lecture after his appointment to the Charles Gibson Collegiate Professorship of History.

DANIEL CASTLE/Daily History Prof. Fredrick Cooper spoke to a crowd of students about African culture and history yesterday at the Rackham Ampitheater.

Cooper spoke about African culture and history in the tradition of Gibson, whose extensive research of the rich indigenous history of Latin America legitimized scholarship in this field.

"That the University of Michigan should award this chair to a scholar whose primary research has been on Africa implies as well that the field is now being considered an integral part of the University's concerns," Cooper said.

Cooper spoke about the importance of viewing Africa as more than a set of negative images, such as apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Rwanda. Cooper challenged the analysis of some historians that Africa has had no successes and only failures.

"But we need more debate, more engagement, more complex analysis of the way economic structures in Africa and the West actually function," Cooper said. "The sterility of Africa-bashing need not be answered by a defense of everything that has happened in Africa."

Cooper was introduced by LSA Dean Edie Goldenberg, who gave a brief history of Gibson's and Cooper's academic achievements.

"He's really made a positive difference, not only in the University's history department, but across the humanities and social sciences as well," Goldenberg said.

Anyone who is awarded a professorship at the University usually is asked to give an inaugural lecture, Goldenberg said.

Cooper read from a prepared speech and spoke very quickly. Some students expressed disappointment with the lecture, which left some audience members bewildered by the rapid flow of words.

"I think it's difficult for audiences to pay attention to speakers who read," said SNRE doctoral candidate Crystal Fortwangler. "Even though the contents were juicy, current and exciting, it was difficult to follow and remain focused. But he rebounded in the question and answer."

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