Mwenda Ntarangwi, host and convener of the conference, is an associate professor of Anthropology and Director of African and African Diaspora Studies at Calvin College. He received his MA and Ph.D. in Anthropology from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, after an MA and B.Ed at Kenyatta University, Kenya. Ntarangwi joined the Calvin faculty in January 2008 and teaches courses in Sociology, International Development Studies, and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program. His scholarship has primarily centered around issues of social justice especially as mediated through popular performance. He has published numerous articles and chapters on music, gender, identity, performance, post-colonial education, pedagogy, and study abroad. Ntarangwi is also author of Gender Performance and Identity: Understanding Swahili Cultural Realities Through Songs (2003, Africa World Press), East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization (2009, University of Illinois Press), and co-editor with David Mills and Mustafa Babiker of African Anthropologies: History, Practice and Critique (2006, CODESRIA and Zed Books).
