HTC Alum Writes about Post-Colonial ‘Love, Sex and Gender’

Ohio University Honors Tutorial College alum Eden Almasude, now a graduate student in African Studies (with a focus on Northern Africa) at Ohio University, wrote two posts for the Bokamoso Leadership Forum, a site dedicated to cultivating responsibility, transparency and accountability in Africa’s future leaders.

Almasude’s bio says she “completed her undergraduate thesis on bacterial gene regulation at Ohio University and is currently the treasurer for Students for Justice in Palestine. She hopes to attend medical school upon completion of her Masters’ degree.” She studied Biological Sciences at Ohio University with adviser Dr. Soichi Tanda, Associate Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Her June articles:

• “Queering African Studies? A reflection on gender, sexuality, and religion,” June 24, in which she ponders, “How is it that we can recognize the impact of colonialism on gender and still largely refuse to discuss sexuality?”
• She also co-authored “The personal is the political: love, sex and gender in the postcolony,” June 3, with Siphokazi Magadla ’10MA, who earned an MA in International Affairs from Ohio University.

The co-authors introduce their topic:”On a careful review of the debates that have shaped theBokamoso Leadership Forum (BLF) blog over the years, one can discern that the central theme that preoccupies the passions of contributors has been how to make sense and ‘undo’ the consequences of the deep disappointments that characterize post-colonial life in Africa fifty years after its independence. Most of our discussions have been focused on how to ‘fix’ political institutions that have mostly contributed to state violence against their own people; how to deal with questions of justice and reconciliation in the aftermath of war; and how different sectors, especially education, health and new technologies, can help us offer ways in which the ‘everyday’ is no longer an ongoing site of violence. The reader of this blog has been treated to a generous engagement of how a restraining and violent public sphere punishes the choices of ordinary people beyond the questions of bread and butter, but it also constrains their ability to dream and live imaginative public and personal lives. What has been curiously missing in these discussions however, is an equally generous engagement with post-colonial intimacy.”