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Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, the Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies will conduct a lecture titled “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (3:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library (Click here for map).
The seminar discusses how the capital town of Eritrea, Asmara, is depicted alternately as Italian, Eritrean, and Ethiopian thus showing the competing claims of ‘ownership’ that traverse its colonial and postcolonial histories and multifaceted identity. It focuses specifically on how the Italian architecture of Asmara is depicted both as a sign of modernization and oppression. Literary and oral-sources are analyzed to illustrate Asmara as a site of cultural encounter and a historical palimpsest depicted in the many literary works, such the poems Asmara (1958, included in the collection Esat Wey Abeba) by Tsegaye Gebremedihin and And Nebis (1992, included in the collection Efta 60 Tirekawoch) by Haile Melekot Mewael; and the novels Oromay (1984) by Bealu Girma and Ye Burqa Zimita (1992) by Tesfaye Gebreab.
These contemporary literary and oral reminiscences of Asmara show how Asmara’s architectural legacies are remembered to express memories of ambivalence between beauty and inhibition, being modern and segregated. Whereby Asmara gets represented as a model town for other African cities and a city of colonial decay and segregation, in these contradictory accounts of memories of Asmara, a de-colonial method of engagement seems to emerge.
Netsanet Gebremichael holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Studies from Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Uganda. She is an Assistant professor and researcher at the Addis Ababa University, Institute of Ethiopian Studies. Since October 2021, Netsanet is also a Fatema Mernissi Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
From April 2010 until November 2012, Netsanet was the Director of the Addis Ababa University Gender Office during her tenure she has initiated several projects among them, she initiated and institutionalized what is called a Gender resource center IT lab and a library for disadvantaged students. Netsanet has been conducting several oral history projects as part of her academic research. She focuses mainly on memory, archival studies, historical and cultural documentation practices. She recently completed the first phase of a documentation on oral recollections of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia as experienced by women. Netsanet has also compiled a monograph based on a broad oral history study of inter-generational perspectives vis-à- vis Emperor Hailessilassie’s era.
In addition, her works include documentation on Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-78) as the recipient of the Global Research Network Grant managed by School of Oriental and African Studies, London (2019-2021). The research outcome led to an archival exhibition entitled Kibibilosh which Netsanet curated at the Modern Art Museum, Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa (7 May – 28 July 2021). Netsanet’s published academic articles include “Travel Writing as an Empirical Mode of Knowing: A Methodological Critique of James Bruce’s Travels and Adventures in Abyssinia” in MISR Review, 2019. “Ambivalent Memories of Imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Segregationist’ from Ethiopia,” Journal of Cultural Studies, 2020, and “PPPs in Ethiopia: The New Frontier. In Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era.” 2021 (turned into also a podcast and an animation film.) She has a forthcoming essay on “Oral Memories of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia in Transition”.
Netsanet’s Ph.D. studies consisted of the documentation of the oral memories of people who lived in Asmara between 1950 and 1975. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Memory in times of Ruptures: Reminiscing Asmara from Ethiopia based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Netsanet is also simultaneously preparing a monograph for Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-1978).
Naminata Diabate is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Cornell University and Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute, Sharjah.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, the Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies will conduct a lecture titled “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (3:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library (Click here for map).
Professor Netsanet Gebremichael, the Fatema Mernissi Postdoctoral Fellow in Social and Cultural Studies will conduct a lecture titled “Ambivalent memories of imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘beautiful’ and ‘segregationist’ from Ethiopia” on Wednesday, February 1, 2023 (3:00 pm) at The Africa Institute Library (Click here for map).
The seminar discusses how the capital town of Eritrea, Asmara, is depicted alternately as Italian, Eritrean, and Ethiopian thus showing the competing claims of ‘ownership’ that traverse its colonial and postcolonial histories and multifaceted identity. It focuses specifically on how the Italian architecture of Asmara is depicted both as a sign of modernization and oppression. Literary and oral-sources are analyzed to illustrate Asmara as a site of cultural encounter and a historical palimpsest depicted in the many literary works, such the poems Asmara (1958, included in the collection Esat Wey Abeba) by Tsegaye Gebremedihin and And Nebis (1992, included in the collection Efta 60 Tirekawoch) by Haile Melekot Mewael; and the novels Oromay (1984) by Bealu Girma and Ye Burqa Zimita (1992) by Tesfaye Gebreab.
These contemporary literary and oral reminiscences of Asmara show how Asmara’s architectural legacies are remembered to express memories of ambivalence between beauty and inhibition, being modern and segregated. Whereby Asmara gets represented as a model town for other African cities and a city of colonial decay and segregation, in these contradictory accounts of memories of Asmara, a de-colonial method of engagement seems to emerge.
Netsanet Gebremichael holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Social Studies from Makerere Institute of Social Research, Makerere University, Uganda. She is an Assistant professor and researcher at the Addis Ababa University, Institute of Ethiopian Studies. Since October 2021, Netsanet is also a Fatema Mernissi Post-Doctoral Fellow at The Africa Institute in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.
From April 2010 until November 2012, Netsanet was the Director of the Addis Ababa University Gender Office during her tenure she has initiated several projects among them, she initiated and institutionalized what is called a Gender resource center IT lab and a library for disadvantaged students. Netsanet has been conducting several oral history projects as part of her academic research. She focuses mainly on memory, archival studies, historical and cultural documentation practices. She recently completed the first phase of a documentation on oral recollections of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia as experienced by women. Netsanet has also compiled a monograph based on a broad oral history study of inter-generational perspectives vis-à- vis Emperor Hailessilassie’s era.
In addition, her works include documentation on Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-78) as the recipient of the Global Research Network Grant managed by School of Oriental and African Studies, London (2019-2021). The research outcome led to an archival exhibition entitled Kibibilosh which Netsanet curated at the Modern Art Museum, Gebre Kristos Desta Center in Addis Ababa (7 May – 28 July 2021). Netsanet’s published academic articles include “Travel Writing as an Empirical Mode of Knowing: A Methodological Critique of James Bruce’s Travels and Adventures in Abyssinia” in MISR Review, 2019. “Ambivalent Memories of Imperial legacies: Asmara as ‘Beautiful’ and ‘Segregationist’ from Ethiopia,” Journal of Cultural Studies, 2020, and “PPPs in Ethiopia: The New Frontier. In Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era.” 2021 (turned into also a podcast and an animation film.) She has a forthcoming essay on “Oral Memories of the 1977 Famine in Ethiopia in Transition”.
Netsanet’s Ph.D. studies consisted of the documentation of the oral memories of people who lived in Asmara between 1950 and 1975. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Memory in times of Ruptures: Reminiscing Asmara from Ethiopia based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Netsanet is also simultaneously preparing a monograph for Women in the Ethiopian Student Movement (1950-1978).
Naminata Diabate is an Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Cornell University and Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow at The Africa Institute, Sharjah.
Through these lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora, and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.
The seminar will be in English.
The session is free and open to the public. Registration is mandatory, Click here to book your place.
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