Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures celebrates Black History Month

October is Black History Month

This October, the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures is proud to celebrate Black History Month with a range of insightful and impactful events that reflect the Faculty’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and critical engagement with global cultural histories.

From theatre performances to groundbreaking research, students, and staff from across the Faculty will be leading the conversation on race, history, and social justice.

Soyinka@90: Wole Soyinka in focus

Courtesy of organiser Lekan Balogun, Lecturer in New Writing and Intercultural Performance at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries, Black History Month will bring a special celebration of Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel laureate, playwright, and political activist, who studied at the University of Leeds. To honour his 90th birthday, the School will host a series of workshops facilitated by Nigerian professional actors and supported by the School.

Wole Soyinka

The centrepiece of these events is Soyinka in the Eye of Shakespeare, a play that brings together characters from Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman and Shakespeare’s Macbeth, exploring themes of guilt, trauma, and colonial legacies. These performances, paired with script development workshops and sessions on intercultural performance, promise to be a unique learning experience for students.

Additionally, a symposium on Soyinka’s work will take place on 30 October 2024 at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries. Key speakers include Chris Dunton, discussing Soyinka's ‘Humanist Ode and other takes on Chibok’, and James Gibbs, reflecting on ‘Wole at 90: What have we learned recently about the Nigerian Playwright and Polemicist?’

Books shine light on the lived experiences of LGBTQ communities in Africa

Meanwhile, two new books shine a light on the lived experiences of LGBTQ communities in Africa. Adriaan van Klinken, Professor of Religion and African Studies at the University of Leeds, and his colleagues have co-authored Stories of Change: Religious Leaders and LGBTIQ Inclusion in East Africa, which tells the powerful life stories of religious leaders in Uganda and Kenya who advocate for the dignity and rights of LGBTIQ people within their communities. Published as an Open Access title, the book is available for free online. Professor Van Klinken’s work forms part of a broader research project that explores progressive African voices championing LGBTIQ inclusion, highlighting the intersection of faith, culture, and human rights.

 

The book follows the recent publication of Called and Queer: Lived Religion and LGBTQ Methodist Clergy in South Africa, by Dr Megan Robertson (also in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science). Using a queer lived religion framing, Called and Queer draws on ethnographic research to analyse how six LGBTQ clergy understand and practice their vocation in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA). Seemingly marginalised in a denomination which maintains that marriage is only between one man and one woman, this book explores why LGBTQ clergy are motivated to live out their calling in the Church and how they make sense of their positions within it. In doing so, it looks beyond an analysis of a Church based on its official and doctrinal institutional positions on queer people and sexualities and, instead, uncovers the taken-for-granted ways that gender and sex are inscribed in ‘the way we do things around here’. 

Listening for race

Dikko Yusuf, a PhD student at the University of Leeds, is leading a groundbreaking research project titled ‘Listening for Race: Reading African Literary Audiobooks.’ Focused on elevating audiobook studies as an academic field, the project proposes a new literary methodology called ‘aural critical theory,’ which combines both written and audio formats to critically analyse African audiobooks. Yusuf's work addresses the notable absence of African audiobooks on popular platforms and seeks to promote the production and accessibility of these works.

Yusuf's fascination with audio media stems from his undergraduate days, when podcasts and audiobooks became an integral part of his daily routine. His PhD project, which began as an MA thesis, aims to highlight the ways in which conversations in podcasts engage with grand ideas and how written African literature comes to life through the audiobook medium. To support his research, he plans to record audio components at the University of Leeds' Helix innovation hub, working closely with co-supervisors Brett Greatley-Hirsch and Brendon Nicholls.

Funded by the AHRC through the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), the project is expected to be completed in 2027. 

Uncoupling heteropatriarchy in African feminism

Professor Tendai Mangena (School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science) researches African feminism. Her British Academy-funded project, Uncoupling Heteropatriarchy in African Feminism, focuses on how unmarried women in Zimbabwe create identities outside the traditional institution of marriage. Mangena’s work sheds light on the ways in which heteropatriarchy dominates in Zimbabwean society and how women resist and navigate these structures.

This pioneering project contributes to the emerging field of Singles Studies in Africa and seeks to elevate the discourse on gender, modernity, and socio-cultural change. Working with Professor Adriaan van Klinken, Professor Mangena will also co-organise a seminar series on feminist and gender discourses, leading up to an international conference in 2026 on Singles Studies: Historical and contemporary discourses in Africa and beyond.

New Blue Plaque on campus celebrates Leeds’ history of anti-slavery and anti-racism

Leeds’ history as a vital location of anti-slavery campaigning has been highlighted with the unveiling of a blue plaque for the University’s Lyddon Hall. Now a student residence, Lyddon Hall was the home of Mary and Wilson Armistead for several years. Wilson was a Quaker merchant and president of the Leeds Anti-Slavery Association, and his wife Mary was the association’s librarian.

The Leeds Anti-Slavery Association was founded in 1853, admitting men and women as equal members. They learned from the inspirational lectures of African American abolitionists who visited the city, including William Wells Brown, Henry "Box" Brown, Ellen and William Craft, Frederick Douglass, Sarah Parker Remond and Moses Roper – who are named on the new plaque.

The plaque, commissioned by Leeds Civic Trust, commemorates the amazing story of Ellen and William Craft, who travelled north through the United States from Georgia to Boston to emancipate themselves from enslavement.

Former slaves Ellen and William Craft, who stayed with the Armisteads at another Leeds residence when they were lecturing in the city

Professor Bridget Bennett from the University’s School of English, whose research was instrumental in the campaign for the plaque, said: “Leeds should be better-known for its connection to the history of abolition and anti-slavery in the United States. The campaign for this plaque has been ongoing for many years, with the input of different people across the city. It’s an important example of how universities can work together with local organisations and communities to have real impact.”

Lyddon Hall was built in 1828 by the Boyne family and was originally named Virginia Cottage after the state where the tobacco that made their fortune was grown. Their wealth derived from the labour of enslaved people of African descent, who had no legal rights and were forced to work under appalling conditions. But just decades later in the 1860s the Armisteads, who were by that time living in the house, used it as a centre to collect goods and funds for newly emancipated people in the United States.

Despite pre-dating the University’s inception as the Yorkshire College of Science in 1874, the Armisteads have several connections to the campus. Works by Wilson, including records from the Yorkshire Quaker Archives, are held in the University Library’s Special Collections.