The Five Colleges African Studies Council is bringing Dr. Douglas Johnson, a world authority on Sudan, will be speaking at three events the first week of October:
Thursday October 4, 11:30-1, “How the Sudanese Civil War Did Not End” in Warbecke Room, Pratt Hall, Mount Holyoke College. (Pratt Hall is off Morgan Street on the South side of the MHC campus.) Students, faculty, and the public are invited.
Later on Thursday, the World Affairs Council of Western Massachusetts will host a talk “Oil, People, and the Border Conflict between Sudan and South Sudan” at 5:30 p.m. at The Glass Room at Elegant Affairs, 1380 Main Street in downtown Springfield. (The public has to pay for this, Five College guests do not, but it would be useful to rsvp to cmelcher@worldaffairscouncil.com by October 2 so that Cyd knows how much finger food to order for us).
On Friday, October 5 at 12:00 at Five Colleges, 97 Spring Street in Amherst, Doug will speak to the African Studies Council and other interested faculty on the archives project in Juba, which he tried to begin over 30 years ago, and which is continuing with the support of the Rift Valley Institute and other organizations.
Johnson has worked on the Sudan peace process for decades. He served in the 2003 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement negotiations over the Three Areas (Abyei, Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile) and later became a member of the Abyei Boundary Commission. Since then, he has advised the Government of South Sudan on North-South boundary issues.
Johnson is the author the author of “When Boundaries become Borders (Rift Valley Institute, 2010) and The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars: Peace or Truce? (James Currey, revised edition 2011).
Afro-American Studies senior Victor Cruz is a wide receiver in his senior season with the UMass Amherst Minutemen–We wish him all the best this year on the gridiron and off!
