Past Event! Note: this event has already taken place.
Obama and Kenya: Book Launch and Film Screening
October 14, 2016 at 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM
| Location: | 2017 Dunton Tower |
| Audience: | Anyone |
| Key Contact: | Dr. Blair Rutherford |
| Contact Email: | african_studies@carleton.ca |
The Institute of African Studies presents a book launch and a film concerning President Obama and Kenya on Friday, October 14th at 2:30pm in 2017 Dunton Tower.
First, there will be a book launch and discussion of Obama and Kenya: Contested Histories and the Politics of Belonging by Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo (2016, Ohio University Press) with Matthew Carotenuto ( associate professor of History and coordinator of African Studies, St. Lawrence University).
Obama & Kenya, Contested Histories and the Politics of Belonging
Barack Obama’s political ascendancy has focused considerable global attention on the history of Kenya generally and the history of the Luo community particularly. From politicos populating the blogosphere and bookshelves in the U.S and Kenya, to tourists traipsing through Obama’s ancestral home, a variety of groups have mobilized new readings of Kenya’s past in service of their own ends. Matthew Carotenuto and Katherine Luongo argue that efforts to cast Obama as a “son of the soil” of the Lake Victoria basin invite insights into the politicized uses of Kenya’s past.
Followed by a screening of The Education of Auma Obama, a film by Bramwen Okpako (Documentary. 2011. 1h21min), with a discussion afterwards with Wangui Kimari (PhD candidate, Anthropology, York University) and Daniel Salau Rogei (PhD candidate, Anthropology, Carleton University), moderated by Matthew Carotenuto.
The Education of Auma Obama
Bramwen Okpako is one of the only documentary filmmakers in the world to have observed the historical election of Barack Obama, the first African-American President, from the point of view of his family in Kenya, making this film required and compelling viewing. Her acquaintance with Obama’s elder sister, Auma, with whom she went to film school in Berlin, gave her unprecedented access to the family, creating the conditions for a film which succeeds not only in offering us a unique and intimate portrait of the US President’s sister Auma Obama, who stands on her own as a public intellectual and activist, but also in bringing into visibility the hopes of Kenya (and indeed Africa) in relation to this momentous election. Shot in Kenya, Germany and the UK, and including unprecedented footage of Obama’s first visit to Kenya with his then fiancée and now First Lady, Michelle Robinson, the film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, is a moving tribute to a trans-generational legacy of struggle which is quietly, yet resolutely, contributing to shaping the world of tomorrow.