SIL International Media Release
Paper on African worldview presented at Czech conference
(April 2008) VIVA AFRICA 2008 was the theme for the 3rd International Conference on African Studies held at the University of West Bohemia (UWB) April 25–26 in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Shelley Ashdown, D.Miss., presented a paper titled The Supernatural Category of the Non-Physical Self in Ndorobo World View. Ashdown is an SIL anthropologist on the faculty of Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL) in Dallas, Texas.
The purpose of the conference was to institutionalize African Studies at UWB through annual international meetings focused on various disciplines concerning Sub-Saharan Africa. It was organized by the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of UWB and the Cultura Africa Association.
Approximately 50 linguists, anthropologists, political scientists and other researchers who have Africa as their field of study attended, many of them presenting the results of original research. Each paper was related to contemporary Africa in general.
Scholars were invited to submit papers in three broad subject areas:
- Anthropological linguistics
- Africa since 1945
- Ethnology and culture
Thirty-five papers were scheduled in ten panels. A panel consisted of three to four papers on a related topic. Ashdown presented her paper in the Religion panel.
- Panel 1. Decolonization and Globalization 1
- Panel 2. Endangered Languages
- Panel 3. Politics
- Panel 4. Religion
- Panel 5. Social Issues
- Panel 6. Ethnicity and Identity
- Panel 7. Culture and Education 1
- Panel 8. Beyond Africa
- Panel 9. Decolonization and Globalization 2
- Panel 10. Culture and Education 2
Related links of interest
- Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics (GIAL)
- SIL academic training
- Anthropology in SIL
- Publications by Shelley Ashdown
- Ethnologue on languages of Africa
- Faculty of Philosophy and Arts at the University of West Bohemia
- Cultura Africa Association