WS Chronicle

Dr. F.E.M.K. Senkoro, the founding director of the Institute of Kiswahili at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, will give the lecture “Popular Kiswahili Culture and Youth Identity in East Africa” on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m. at Winston-Salem State University.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be in Room 136 of the R. J. Reynolds Building on the WSSU campus.

Kiswahili is spoken by an estimated 50 million people in eastern and central African.  It is the national language in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and is spoken in several other areas including Rwanda, Burundi, portions of Mozambique and Somalia.

Senkoro, currently the distinguished visiting professor at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University, will be at WSSU through March 1.  He also will serve as the host faculty for the university’s summer 2013 study abroad program in Kenya and Tanzania.  During his visit, he will meet with students and faculty participating in the summer program and also participate in the UNC language assembly video class on Swahili.  His visit is being sponsored by the WSSU Office of International Programs and the Department of World Languages and Cultures.

Senkoro has been a guest scholar at the Universities of South Africa and Durban-Westville and a visiting professor and senior fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Boston College and Harvard. He has published more than 100 articles on various aspects of African literature, especially on Kiswahili literature and culture, 10 books, two novels and a collection of short stories. Senkoro’s current research endeavours include projects on the language of instruction in Tanzania and South Africa, the interface between modern and indigenous knowledge in land use activities in the Lake Victoria Basin and communication changes in the new family set-up resulting from the effects of HIV/AIDS in Southern Tanzania.