Lagos Studies Association Panels at the African Studies Association Meeting
New Orleans, Louisiana
December 3-6, 2026
The Women of Fuji: Episode II of The Fuji Documentary
December 3/ Studio 6 (2nd Floor)
3:00-4:45 (film screening)
5:00—6:45 (film discussion)
Chair: Halimat Somotan (Georgetown University)
Filmmaker: Saheed Aderinto (Florida International University)
Disruptive AI: Generative Possibilities, Harmful Effects, and the Reordering of African Political and Security Futures
December 4/8:00—9:45/Galerie 2 (2nd Floor)
Chair: Gbemisola Abiola (Harvard University)
From Steel to Systems: AI, Informational Infrastructures, and the Changing Materiality of Warfare in the Sahel by Gbemisola Abiola (Harvard University)
Displacement in the age of Algorithm: AI, Conflict Escalation, and the Governance of the Sahel Migration and Refugee Crises by Adeyemi Badewa (University of Pittsburgh)
Stylish AI: Annotation, Aesthetic Alignment, and the Meanings of Cloud Work in Kenya
by Junnan Mu (Harvard University)
Nollywood, AI, and the Future of the Global South’s Creative Economy
by Kamahra Ewing (University of Kentucky)
Negotiating Algorithmic Sovereignty: Kenya, Ghana, and the Political Economy of African AI in a Data-Extractive World by Collins Ketere (Ohio University)
African Societies in Transition: Gender, Medicine, and Ethnicities
December 4/3:00—4:45/Bacchus (4th floor)
Chair: Gloria Chuku (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Ubuntu and the Ethics of Care: African Environmental Philosophies and sustainable Futures by Juliet Tobechukwu Udeakor (University of Mississippi)
“Yes, We Are Sorry for Him”: Mobile Cinema and the Performance of Colonial Public Health in Nigeria by Sochima Okafor (Yale University)
“Against Whose Will?”: Sexual Violence, Bodily Will, and Girl-Child Health in Colonial Eastern Nigeria by Miracle Nduka (The University of Texas at Austin)
Civil Society, Ethnonationalisms, Religious Pluralism, and the Nigerian State by Gloria Chuku (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Ecofeminist Assertion of Womanhood and Female Autonomy in Bankong-Obi's "What Still Yields by Michael Imossan (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
African Street in a Flux: Creativity of Practice and the City that Never Arrives
December 5/10:00—11:45/Studio 6 (2nd Floor)
Chair: Bankole Wright (Florida International University)
Newspaper Stands: Vernacular Debate and Urban Futures in Flux by Olamide Eniola (Tulane University)
Performativity of Dissent in New Nollywood Gangster Epics by Babatunde Opeyemi Salami (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
From Positive Neutralism to Strategic Non-alignment: Continuities, Ruptures, and the Limits of African Agency in a Multipolar World by Fasola Pietro (University of Florence)
Caning the City: Symbolic Order and Urban World-Making in Lagos Motor Parks by Bankole Wright (Florida International University)
Author Meets Critic: Nigerian Hip-Hop: Race, Knowledge, and the Poetic of Resistance
December 5/1:00—2:45/Galerie 2 (2nd Floor)
Chair: Daniel Ajayi (Texas Tech University)
Alaba Ilesanmi (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
Daniel Ajayi (Texas Tech University)
Olarotimi Ogungbemi (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Michael Oshindoro (Bowdoin College)
Tosin Gbogi (University of Minnesota, Twin Cities)
Author Meets Critic: Birth Politics: Colonial Power, Medical Pluralism, and Maternity in Nigeria
December 5/3:00—4:45/Regent (4th floor)
Chair: Gloria Chuku (University of Maryland-Baltimore County)
Ogechukwu Williams (University at Buffalo)
Ayodeji Adegbite (Brown University)
Esther Ajayi-Lowo (Texas Christian University)
Abimbola Adelakun (University of Chicago)
Abena Osseo-Asare (University of Texas at Austin)
Liquid Authority: Culture, Digital Platforms, and Public Performance
December 5/5:00—6:45/Regent (4th floor)
Chair: Kehinde Olúkáyọ̀dé (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
“Fem” the State: Afrobeats, Digital Media, and Nigerian Youth Politics by Tobi Idowu (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Beyond Bullets and Ballots: Technology, Youth, And New Pathways to Peace in Kenya by Precious Wapukha (Kibabii University)
The Celebrity of the Poor and Its Politics of Aesthetic Choreography of Popularism by Kehinde Olúkáyọ̀dé (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Epistolary Futurities and Ẹ̀bùnlingual Logics: Multilingual Storytelling as Radical Relational Imagination Across Africa by Yetunde Alabede (Waverly Community Schools)