Honors College to Host Virtual Pulse Discussion on War in Sudan

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Sudanese protesters in Khartoum, June 2019.

Since April 2023, the country of Sudan has been embroiled in a struggle for power between Sudanese armed forces and Rapid Support Forces, displacing more than 9 million people.

Both sides have been accused of war crimes, and the United Nations says the war has created the "world's worst hunger crisis," with World Food Programme citing more than 25 million people as facing acute hunger.

On Tuesday, Oct. 22, the Honors College will present a virtual panel featuring faculty and staff from the University of Arkansas and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with expertise in African history, Sudan's relationship with the Middle East and the politics of Sudan.

The Pulse Panel will discuss the history, politics and ongoing displacement crisis in Sudan from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. on Zoom.

Faculty who will provide context and lead a question-and-answer session include:

• Todd Cleveland, Distinguished Professor of African history at the U of A
• Joel Gordon, professor of history and Middle East studies at the U of A
• Mai Hassan, associate professor of political science at MIT

Students from the respective universities will serve as moderators:

• Maya Beavers, B.A. candidate in advertising and public relations at the U of A
• Amna Magzoub, M.S./M.B.A. candidate at MIT Leaders for Global Operations
• Kenneth Tagoe, M.A. candidate in African and African American studies at the U of A

The panel is open to the public, and registration is required. Register here.

Prior to the onset of war, the country's long-standing president, Omar al-Bashir, was ousted with huge protests calling for his power to be overturned and advocating for an introduction of democracy.

"There was a sense of hope in the air in April 2019," said Mai Hassan, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the faculty director of MIT-Africa. "After months of nationwide protest, the country's military elites finally sided with the people. But the unity among Bashir's opponents, and ultimately within the military establishment itself, was short-lived. By 2023, the alliance of military men who had joined together to oust Bashir broke down, resulting in the tragic war that we are witnessing today."

Joel Gordon, professor of Middle East studies, emphasized the broader implications of civic involvement in Sudan's 2019 coup, particularly in how the country was viewed from a Middle Eastern perspective.

"From the vantage point of the Arab world, Sudan appeared to be the exception to the failures and frustrations of the 'Arab spring,' Gordon said. "The current strife poses important questions about how we might understand civil conflict, the authoritarian impulses of political and military elites, the confluence of natural resources, climate and population, and the legacies of colonialism and competing visions of civic identity and statehood."

"This Pulse session on Sudan is extremely important given how little most of our students—and the general public—know about Africa," said Todd Cleveland, Distinguished Professor of African history. "Unfortunately, on one hand, having an extended discussion about a crisis on the continent has the potential to reinforce notions of Africa as a place of endemic conflict and disease. Yet, on the other hand, the impetus for organizing the event was not only to raise awareness about developments in Sudan, but also because this type of civil conflict on the continent is somewhat exceptional in contemporary Africa rather than commonplace, as it was in the continent's recent past."

The Honors College Pulse discussion series began in 2016 and was named in remembrance of victims of the Pulse nightclub shootings. Discussion topics are generated by honors students. The discussions allow students to ask questions about current events and trends and to learn holistically from varying interdisciplinary perspectives across campus. Panel discussions have featured conversations around affirmative action, the Dakota Access Pipeline Project, Roe v. Wade, the history of campus protests, the legal ramifications and decisions related to hate crimes, ways to fight local hunger and poverty, the Baltimore Bridge accident and more. 

Todd Cleveland

Todd Cleveland is a Distinguished Professor of African history at the University of Arkansas, where he teaches classes on African history and sports history. He also serves as the associate chair and director of graduate studies for the Department of History at Arkansas. He has authored six books, which variously examine the history of diamond mining in Africa, sports in Africa and tourism in Africa, often centering indigenous laborers and focusing on labor migration. He has also co-edited a volume on sports in Africa and two of his books — Following the Ball: The Migration of African Soccer Players across the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1949-1975 (Ohio University Press, 2017) and Diamonds in the Rough: Corporate Paternalism and African Professionalism on the Mines of Colonial Angola, 1917-1975 (Ohio University Press, 2015) — have been translated and published in Portuguese.

Joel Gordon

Joel Gordon, professor of history and Middle East studies, is a political and cultural historian of modern Egypt and the Middle East. He teaches and writes about political change, intersections of popular and public culture, historical memory and nostalgia, and religious and secular crosscurrents, with emphases on cinema, music and mass media. He has written about Egyptian and Arab attitudes toward Blackness, including Sudan. He is the author of three books and numerous articles that have appeared in academic journals, edited volumes, including the New Cambridge History of Islam. He is currently editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. 

Mai Hassan

Mai Hassan is an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the faculty director of MIT-Africa. Her first book — Regime Threats and State Solutions (Cambridge University Press, 2020) — was selected as a Best Book of 2020 by Foreign Affairs, won the American Political Science Association's 2021 Robert A. Dahl Award, and was the recipient of the African Studies Association's 2021 Bethwell A. Ogot Award. Her ongoing research focuses on popular mobilization under autocratic repression with a focus on Sudan's 2019 popular uprising. She earned her Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and her B.A. in Political & Social Thought from the University of Virginia.

About the Honors College: The University of Arkansas Honors College was established in 2002 and brings together high-achieving undergraduate students and the university's top professors to share transformative learning experiences. Each year the Honors College awards up to 90 freshman fellowships that provide $80,000 over four years, and more than $1 million in undergraduate research and study abroad grants. The Honors College is nationally recognized for the high caliber of students it admits and graduates. Honors students enjoy small, in-depth classes, and programs are offered in all disciplines, tailored to students' academic interests, with interdisciplinary collaborations encouraged. All Honors College graduates have engaged in mentored research.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $3 billion to Arkansas' economy through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.