��سԹ� Launches Rotberg Lecture in African Politics with April 22 Inaugural Talk</h1> <article> <h1>��سԹ� Launches Rotberg Lecture in African Politics with April 22 Inaugural Talk</h1> <p>kviancou — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:48:21 +0000</p> <span>��سԹ� Launches Rotberg Lecture in African Politics with April 22 Inaugural Talk</span> <span><span>kviancou</span></span> <span><time datetime="2026-04-21T10:48:21-04:00" title="Tuesday, April 21, 2026 - 10:48">Tue, 04/21/2026 - 10:48</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>��سԹ� has established the <strong>Robert I. Rotberg ’55 and Fiona J. Y. Rotberg ’90 Annual Lecture in African Politics</strong>, a new endowed series that will bring leading scholars to campus each year.</p><p>The lecture series is designed to expand opportunities for students and the broader community to engage with the study of political development across the African continent—past, present, and future—while also reflecting ��سԹ�’s longstanding connections to influential African leaders and thinkers.</p><p>Those connections include South African educator and African National Congress founder John Langalibalele Dube, Class of 1890; Mozambican Liberation Front president Eduardo Mondlane, Class of 1953; Nigerian scholar of Black nationalism E. U. Essien-Udom, Class of 1955; and Ghanaian Finance Minister Anthony Akoto Osei, Class of 1978.</p><p>Robert Rotberg graduated from ��سԹ� in 1955 with a bachelor’s degree in history; his daughter, Fiona Rotberg, graduated in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in government. She is an official with the World Wildlife Fund in Stockholm. He is president emeritus of the World Peace Foundation, a former professor of political science and history at MIT and Harvard, and a former president of Lafayette College. He is also an honorary ��سԹ� trustee and a former president of the ��سԹ� Alumni Association.</p><p>The Rotberg Lecture builds on the family’s longstanding support of ��سԹ�, including endowments for African sculpture at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, financial aid for students from southern Africa, and the acquisition of significant library materials in African and Latin American history and social science.</p><p>The inaugural Rotberg Lecture will take place <a href="/events/political-rupture-post-liberal-world-changing-regionalisms-africa"><strong>Wednesday, April 22, 2026, at 4:30 p.m. in Craig Lecture Hall</strong></a>. The event is open to all members of the ��سԹ� campus community.</p><p>The first lecture will feature Catherine Boone, Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Boone will present “Political Rupture in a Post-Liberal World: Changing Regionalisms in Africa.”</p><p>Her talk will explore how current geopolitical and geoeconomic shifts are reshaping domestic politics and interstate relations across the African continent. As global power rivalries intensify, she argues, shifting economic dynamics are altering regional balances of power within African countries, reconfiguring political boundaries, and prompting new approaches to the study of politics and international relations.</p><p>Boone’s research focuses on comparative political economy, with an emphasis on institutions and the political and economic geography of state-building in African countries. She is the author of <em>Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design </em>(2024), <em>Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Conflict in Africa</em> (2014), <em>Political Topographies of the African State</em> (2003), and <em>Merchant Capital and the Roots of State Power in Senegal</em> (1993). She was elected to the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-subhead field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Annual series brings global scholars to campus, deepening engagement with African political development</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2026-04-21T12:00:00Z">Tue, 04/21/2026 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Office of Communications</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2371">Speaker Series</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=4154">Politics</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-caption field--type-string-long field--label-hidden field__item">The first Rotberg lecture will feature Catherine Boone, the Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science.</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">courtesy of Catherine Boone</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-article-header field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">0</div> </article> <article> <h1>Baron Pineda Discusses the Challenges of Social Media Content Standards</h1> <p>swargo — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 17:03:54 +0000</p> <span>Baron Pineda Discusses the Challenges of Social Media Content Standards</span> <span><span>swargo</span></span> <span><time datetime="2020-11-17T12:03:54-05:00" title="Tuesday, November 17, 2020 - 12:03">Tue, 11/17/2020 - 12:03</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Pineda will discuss in his presentation how social media platforms must contend with the cultural variations of global users while trying to create and enforce universal standards. </p> <p>Pineda was a member of Facebook’s Data Transparency Advisory Group, which assessed Facebook’s methods of measuring and reporting on its Community Standards enforcement policies. The group, whose work was coordinated by the Justice Collaboratory, released its <a href="https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/news/facebook-data-transparency-advisory-group-releases-final-report">report</a> in May 2019.</p> <hr> <p><strong>What challenges do cultural differences present for social media platforms?</strong></p> <p>I think it important to see the rise of social media platforms in the broader context of the rise of information technology and “tech” more generally. Often there is an initial period of promise and hope that is followed by disillusionment and disappointment. Think about the arc that the discussion about video games has gone through over the last 40 years—from wonderful new toys to corrupter of young people’s minds.</p> <p>Social media finds itself in this moment on the downside of one of these valleys as it is blamed for many societal ills—sometimes deservedly and sometimes not. How these perceptions of it are formed and take shape are of course political but they are also deeply cultural and they need to be studied through a global and cross-cultural lens.</p> <p><strong>How do cultural differences affect the way people interact with and utilize social media?</strong></p> <p>Social media opens up the possibility to share images and messages with a much broader range of people but it does not leave behind norms about how information about oneself, one’s community, and even one’s country should be shared. But these norms are unmistakably challenged by the possibilities and perils of social media and, for better or for worse, these norms are either changed or reaffirmed.</p> <p>Recently, I have been in dialogue with Sarah Vieweg (an anthropologist at Twitter) and Adam Hodges (a sociocultural linguist at the University of Colorado) and they have written, for example, about how the use of social media in the context of the Persian Gulf is deeply shaped by very different expectations of privacy, views about modesty and (more collectivist) constructions of personhood that constrain the choices that people make about what pictures and message to post.</p> <p>Sarah and Adam and their colleagues have written about how people in Saudi Arabia (7th in the world for per capita use of Facebook) will very carefully create multiple accounts and multiple groups so that they can more tightly control how their images and messages can circulate.</p> <p><strong>Why is it important for social media platforms to understand how cultures differ globally as they look to moderate content for users around the world?</strong></p> <p>Whenever an institution puts itself in a place of being an arbiter or a judge, the ability to establish its own legitimacy in this role is a key to success. There is nothing new about this. Private companies have always had to balance local, national, and international standards as they operate.</p> <p>Social media is a particularly interesting industry in this context, however, because they are in a certain sense deterritorialized, and participation in them as a “user’’ is (arguably) elective. I think these features, among others, have led to the legitimacy problems that social media companies are encountering. The legitimacy to ‘‘govern’’ is going to be enjoyed in the most meaningful way when it is part of a collaborative and democratic process. That is the challenge … one that needs to be met with a truly cross-cultural strategy.</p> <p><strong>Are there cultural distinctions within regions of the United States that might influence the way people interact with social media?</strong></p> <p>This question reminds me of a meme that has been circulating since the election in which an electoral map of the United States is displayed (it mostly has tiny red dots spread over the largest portions of the map but with giant blue bubbles in the big cities) and the caption is ‘Land does not vote.’ </p> <p>There is a lot of talk about polarization in the United States right now and a case could be made for the rural/urban divide being the most stark. I don’t have a good answer for how this happened (or even whether this is necessarily a huge departure from previous trends) but I think that as modern social science looks at how religion, race, class, gender, etc., plays into this contemporary reality we must also examine how these traditional factors intersect in emergent ways with social media.</p> <p><strong>In your research, you also look at human rights and global indigenous politics, which is the subject of your most recent book called <em>Indigenous Conventions: Human Rights and Cultural Politics at the United Nations</em>. Why did this capture your interest as an anthropologist?</strong></p> <p>In my Human Rights class at ��سԹ�, I always do an exercise with students in which I get everyone to talk about the ways in which particular cultural forms travel the globe—whether they be business suits, eating utensils, religions, legal systems, musical instruments, baseball, etc. What I like about that exercise is that it prepares us to talk about transitions from local to global and back again.</p> <p>In the UN project, I am interested in the way that the idea of being indigenous travels from some areas where it is deeply entrenched (like the Americas and Australia) to other areas where it is newer and more unresolved. I am also interested in the seeming mismatch between indigenous peoples (who usually have a fraught relationship with the official nation-states of the world) and the United Nations system (a club of nation-states).</p> <p>For me having the privilege to observe how this context is negotiated is fascinating and inspiring.</p> <p><strong>Is there any intersection between your research on human rights and indigenous political issues and your research on the effect of cultural differences on social media content?</strong></p> <p>Yes. I have been working recently on how social media platforms make and enforce the rules that govern the platforms and I see this is a ‘cultural form’ itself that starts in the context of the USA and now is being asked and expected to cover the entire globe and billions of tweets in hundreds of languages. How content moderation is adapted and not adapted to address this pretense of universal coverage is a really interesting subject for me.</p> <p>It is also a subject that has fascinating parallels with the Universal Human Rights movement that since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 has been directed out of the United Nations. Both have to struggle with the desire to have a uniform set of standards that will apply to all people (on the basis of being human, not just citizens of a particular country) while also taking into account cultural differences and global inequalities.</p> <p>I think that the platforms can learn a lot from the human rights movement both figuratively (as an interesting comparative case) but also literally (as an already established set of institutions from whom they could invite help, scrutiny, and, yes, even regulation).</p> <p><strong>You have expressed an interest in developing ways to study social media anthropologically. What might that look like and how could that improve how people interact with social media?</strong></p> <p>The trademark methods of anthropology are participant-observation and ethnography but these methods are geared towards intensive face-to-face interaction rather than surveys or experimental approaches. How to use face-to-face methodologies in a digital world? The challenges are unmistakable but the need is very apparent to me.</p> <p>We just went through an election in the USA in which many people on both sides can’t imagine how somebody on the other side could possibly have cast the vote that they just cast. The anthropological ideal of putting yourself in another person’s shoes (what we call an ‘emic’ perspective) has never been more important and it needs to be done online.</p> <p>I have benefitted from many collaborations over the years on this and other work with Sudhir Venkatesh, a sociologist at Columbia University who has used ethnography to study everything from informal drug, gun, and sex economies to the lifestyles of the young and wealthy of Manhattan.</p> <p>I also have enjoyed working through these issues with ��سԹ� students, particularly the Tech and Trust team that I put together at ��سԹ� this summer. Megan Grabill, Carolina Johnson, Rena Wang, and Chris Schmucki and I worked hard on these issues and they continue to assist me as I write a journal article on content moderation and human rights. We were able to interact during the summer with people at Columbia, the University of Chicago, and Twitter.</p> <p>In addition to working with students, I have really enjoyed participating in meetings and workshops over the last few years in which people from industry and academia, in a pretty unprecedented way, have gathered to examine these issues. Some of these meetings have been organized by my colleagues at the Social Media Governance Initiative of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale University Law School.</p> <p>It is important to understand deeply how people integrate social media into their lives and from there we can continue to work on making these platforms healthier.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2020-11-17T12:00:00Z">Tue, 11/17/2020 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Scott Wargo</div> <div class="text-content field field--name-field-intro-text field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Professor of Anthropology Baron Pineda will present “Grey Areas: Universal Standards, Cultural Difference and Local Contexts in Social Media Content Moderation” as part of the Tea At Two Virtual Series presented by the Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School. <a href="https://law.yale.edu/justice-collaboratory/connect/events">His talk</a> is from 2-3p.m., Thursday, November 19.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2371">Speaker Series</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2414">Faculty</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2377">Arts & Humanities</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=24656">Anthropology</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-faculty field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/baron-pineda" hreflang="und">Baron Pineda</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/anthropology" hreflang="und">Anthropology</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Jennifer Manna</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> </article> <article> <h1>Afrikan Heritage House Friday Night Lecture Series Returns</h1> <p>ygay — Wed, 11 Nov 2020 19:45:33 +0000</p> <span>Afrikan Heritage House Friday Night Lecture Series Returns</span> <span><span>ygay</span></span> <span><time datetime="2020-11-11T14:45:33-05:00" title="Wednesday, November 11, 2020 - 14:45">Wed, 11/11/2020 - 14:45</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Afrikan Heritage House Friday Night Lecture Series had its start more than 40 years ago and ran until the 1980s. The vast array of presenters included professionals in academia, the sciences, artists, politicians, entrepreneurs, and activists. After each lecture, a question and answer period helped students widen their understanding of the presenter’s career path. </p> <p>“I hope the speakers help students think more about how they can use their expertise to give back to or work in the Black community, regardless of what they decide to pursue as a career,” says Candice Raynor, director and faculty in residence of Afrikan Heritage House.</p> <p>Raynor learned about the series from her colleagues in Africana Studies when she came to ��سԹ� College four years ago. And again last year during Black History Month and the 50th anniversary of Afrikan Heritage House and the department. Alumni from the 1970s who were active in the House were invited back to ��سԹ� and talked about the series. After students learned about it, they immediately asked Raynor if they could bring it back.</p> <p>“I don't recall a series like this when I was in college, but being from Atlanta, which has long had a sizable Black professional class, I was fortunate to be exposed to Black people from a variety of fields growing up,” says Raynor. </p> <p>“I can still remember listening to Monica Kaufman, a Black news anchor who was the first woman and first person of color to anchor the evening news in Atlanta, speak at my middle school about her career path. I remember the head of the local NAACP branch speaking regularly at my church. I would definitely bug him afterward with a hundred questions that he always tried to answer. I remember watching the mayor of Atlanta, who has always been a Black person since 1974, speak on TV. My pediatrician was Black. I grew up feeling like anything was possible for me partially because I was surrounded by people that looked like me who were doing all kinds of things.” </p> <p>Raynor says she hopes the Afrikan Heritage House Friday Night Lecture Series at ��سԹ� will echo the event’s initial goal: Help students see the possibilities for their futures and the futures of their peers. </p> <p>The virtual series launched on October 9, with Daniel Black, an award-winning novelist and professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University. In recognition of Kuumba Week—��سԹ�’s annual celebration of Black creativity—Jamal Parker, a performance artist, author, educator, and international slam poetry champion, will give a virtual performance at 7:30 p.m., November 13.</p> <p>A list of speakers for next semester is under way.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2020-11-11T12:00:00Z">Wed, 11/11/2020 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Yvonne Gay</div> <div class="text-content field field--name-field-intro-text field--type-text-long field--label-hidden field__item"><p>A signature Afrikan Heritage House program that gives participants the opportunity to hear and learn from Black professionals is making a virtual return.</p></div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2371">Speaker Series</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2377">Arts & Humanities</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-programs field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?program=4821">Africana Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-departments field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/arts-and-sciences/departments/africana-studies" hreflang="und">Africana Studies</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-caption field--type-string-long field--label-hidden field__item">The podium in Afrikan Heritage House.</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-credit field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Yvonne Gay</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> </article> <article> <h1>Framing of Race Series: 'Racism Without Racists' Author Speaks</h1> <p>Anonymous — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 20:25:42 +0000</p> <span>Framing of Race Series: 'Racism Without Racists' Author Speaks</span> <span><span>Anonymous (not verified)</span></span> <span><time datetime="2017-01-31T15:25:42-05:00" title="Tuesday, January 31, 2017 - 15:25">Tue, 01/31/2017 - 15:25</time> </span> <div class="text-content field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The 2016 Think/Create/Engage series begins with an evening lecture by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a Duke University sociologist and author of <em>Racism Without Racists: Color Blind Racism And the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America.</em></p> <p>Bonilla-Silva will give a talk titled "The Diversity Blues: Reframing the Diversity Agenda at HWCU (historically white colleges and universities)” at <a href="https://calendar.oberlin.edu/event/an_evening_with_eduardo_bonilla_silva_duke_univeristy?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=��سԹ�+College#.V_UlrGPVT0E">7:30 p.m. Thursday, October 6,</a> in Dye Lecture Hall in the ��سԹ� Science Center.</p> <p>The lecture is part of ��سԹ�’s <a href="/news/new-series-explores-framing-race">Think/Create/Engage Series</a> 2016 theme, “The Framing of Race.” This new annual series explores complex topical issues using the tools and resources made available by the synergy of a liberal arts college, a conservatory, and an art museum. The series’ steering committee selected this theme in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and demands for immigration reform and other activism last year on campus and around the nation.</p> <p>Other speakers scheduled this fall include Leslie Harris, cofounder and director of the Transforming Community Project at Emory University (October 24), and Jennifer Jones, assistant professor of American studies and gender and race studies at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa (November 1).</p> <p>Harris, a professor at history at Northwestern University, will talk about <a href="https://calendar.oberlin.edu/event/transforming_higher_education_communities_merit_access_inclusion?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=��سԹ�+College#.V_Um4mPVT0E">“Transforming Higher Education: Merit, Access, and Inclusion.”</a> She will draw on her experiences encouraging universities to have open dialogues about race and to confront the legacies of their racial history, to explore the recent upheavals at higher education institutions.</p> <p>Jones’s talk, <a href="https://calendar.oberlin.edu/event/saving_the_race_sclcwomen_inc_and_ambivalent_hivaids_activism_1986-1993?utm_campaign=widget&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=��سԹ�+College#.V_UmS2PVT0E">“Saving the Race,”</a> will examine the efforts by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s female auxiliary (SCLC W.O.M.E.N. Inc.) to promote HIV/ AIDS education in black communities and what their programs reveal about the response of black liberals to sexual minorities in American life and law.</p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-type field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item">News Story</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-date field--type-datetime field--label-hidden field__item"><time datetime="2016-10-05T12:00:00Z">Wed, 10/05/2016 - 12:00</time> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-author field--type-string field--label-hidden field__item">Communications Staff</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news?tag=2371">Speaker Series</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-image-caption field--type-string-long field--label-hidden field__item">The Framing of Race</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-pin-school-page field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">Off</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-photo-gallery-top field--type-boolean field--label-hidden field__item">false</div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-media field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__item"> </div> </article> </main></body></html>