Bill Freund was a Marxist historian in method, attentive to political economy and to the material underpinnings of power, while retaining a critical distance to Marxism.
Latest
Missing datasets
African societies are failing to systematically capture the true impact of COVID-19.
Seeking refuge in Sahelian cinema
Director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun utilizes the fluid space of the Sahel to demonstrate the power of cinema as a limitless art.
In the jungles of the Congo
The book ‘Emerald Labyrinth’ explores American and Congolese efforts to document species biodiversity.
Race, caste and Kamala
Kamala Harris should be critiqued or celebrated not according to a faulty and disingenuous understanding of her lineage, but on the basis of her actual policy positions and future governing vision.
Utopias, joy, and the law
The director of Kenyan film ‘Rafiki’ discusses leading the struggle against state sponsored censorship in Kenya right now.
COVID-19
No one is coming to save us
The government of Zimbabwe has decided it does not care whether Zimbabweans live or die.
Fighting the pandemic in the global South
On the other side of the pandemic, we must strengthen and build strong working-class movements to challenge imperialism and neocolonialism.
Although it’s dangerous, we need to survive
Burundian refugees in Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda are enacting grassroots responses to COVID-19.
Khartoum’s lockdown
In Sudan's capital, security forces arbitrarily enforce a haphazard lockdown.
Culture
African literature is a country
What if you survey African literature professors to find out which works and writers are most regularly taught? Only a few canonical ones continue to dominate curricula.
Naira Marley is no revolutionary
A fan of rapper Naira Marley writes that it will take more than counter-cultural popularity to effect any tangible change in Nigeria.
What she wore
The exhibition, ‘Men Lebsa Neber,’ features a staggering collection of the clothes and stories of rape survivors across Ethiopia.
Toppling statues as a decolonial ethic
The blitz on monuments signifies not the abandonment of history, but rather the rejection of a narrative of modernity created by the heirs of global plunder.
The second lives of zombie monuments
How do we deal with the unfinished business of the past? Cape Town has a surprisingly poetic answer.
Capitalism in My City
Vijana masikini wa jiji la Nairobi wanachukuliwa kama wahalifu kwa ajili ya vurugu za mfumo ambazo zinawanyima ajira, haki na uhuru.
How poor urban youth in Nairobi are criminalized by systemic violence that denies them jobs, justice, and freedoms.
Politics
Herman Mashaba wants you to forget
When considering Herman Mashaba’s new political plans, the South African public must reckon with the former mayor of Johannesburg’s actual record.
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, a healer from within
We should honor Professor Ernest Wamba dia Wamba by carrying on his life’s work.
Ghana’s retrogressive Public Universities Bill
Ghana’s ruling party has proposed a new law to control the country’s public universities. The country’s academics are fighting it.
The media’s crisis on Ethiopia
Western media coverage of Ethiopia’s political crisis turns a blind eye to the grassroots movement behind the protests.
A private city
Eko Atlantic in Lagos, like Tatu City in Nairobi, Kenya; Hope City in Accra, Ghana; and Cité le Fleuve in Kinshasa, DRC, point to the rise of private cities. What does it mean for the rest of us?
AIAC SPORTS
Raja Casablanca’s fan clubs are well organized, politically active and occasionally violent.