Project Diaspora and the Morehouse College Department of Political Science are joining forces

This fall, Project Diaspora and the Morehouse College Department of Political Science are joining forces with an exciting new collaboration. Students enrolled in Professor Laura Seay’s Contemporary African Politics course are engaged in an in-depth study of politics and current events on the continent through traditional methods of learning like reading, hearing lectures, and in-class discussions. But Seay wanted her students, almost all of whom identify as African-American, to form deeper connections with the continent’s people. She notes, “Learning about Africa from a book is one thing; learning from Africans and Diaspora members is quite another. Through our collaboration with Project Diaspora, our students will be able to engage directly with those who are imagining, planning, and building the future of African states.”

To that end, Project Diaspora founder TMS Ruge stepped up to provide a platform for engagement through the Project Diaspora website. From September through November, Morehouse students will be blogging, video chatting about current issues in African states, interviewing African and Diaspora leaders, and hosting weekly Twitter chats about major issues on the Project Diaspora Twitter feed, @projectdiaspora. Noted Ruge, “Thanks to social media technologies, we are able to connect the continent in ways that have never been done before. This is not only engagement, in a way it is the inculcation of Africa’s intellectual capacity into the Western Academic theatre. The complete opposite of learning from a text book. I think this is the way it should be. Hopefully we are successful at it.”

The first chat is THIS FRIDAY, September 21, where student Nathaniel Beamon-El will host a discussion of democracy and democratization in Africa at noon Eastern US/5pm GMT/7pm East African time.  Join us for this and our other chats using hashtag #projectdiaspora. We look forward to the conversations!

UPDATE:
Dr. Laura Seay archived the whole discussion on Storify.