Martins Kwazema

November 19, 2018November 20, 2018

CAPTURING THE HYPER-PRESENT: BREATHING PASTS IN A LIVING PRESENT

Right after our mind-drenching study circle in the global history laboratory here in Turku at the end of October 2018, I headed for another intellectually stimulating multi-disciplinary workshop hosted by the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies in Germany. While discussions at the study circle proceeded, my mind constantly circled around the global historian’s inescapable task of theorizing the ‘global’ in global history. The theorization would rightfully represent a valid starting point for thinking about broader spheres, scales, and themes in investigating global history.

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June 17, 2017July 16, 2018

Space in the Future of Forests – The case of the Sahara

I have recently made an infographic video on “Forests as the Lungs of the Planet” in which I talk about the consequences of human action in the present on the future by thinking in ‘Forest Tense’. However, while at the just concluded LocGlob(Locating the Global) workshop which took place in Åbo Akademi Turku(15-16 June, 2017), a presentation by a colleague, Laura Hollsten on ‘Environmental Pessimism’ as a definitive schema for articulating space began a stirring of the environmental pessimist in me – most especially the one who designed the Forest infographic. Continue reading “Space in the Future of Forests – The case of the Sahara”

February 21, 2017May 15, 2017

We are all “Futurists”

I have just completed a month at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala Sweden as a visiting researcher. I must confess Uppsala is a beautiful city. Most interestingly is the possibility to locate almost every part of the city by walking. It is tightly designed to suit the life of a student. I love it!!

Uppsala bus

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January 4, 2017January 7, 2017

In his 1852 essay, published in the leftist magazine Die Revolution, Karl Marx highlighted the repetitive nature of history in his famous words “….first as tragedy, then as farce” (Marx, 1852). Further, Anglo-Irish playwright, critic and polemist, George Bernard Shaw extrapolated this despondent eventuality by highlighting mankind´s attenuation towards experiential learning in his book Man and Superman , stating “If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.”

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