Public Lecture: Keeping the flame alive: Commemorating martyrs in the Sudanese revolution; Speaker: Valerie Haensch

Abstract:

Since the start of Sudan’s December 2018 revolution and the overthrow of President al-Bashir in April 2019, competing struggles have been going on between supporters of the ousted Islamist regime and those of the revolutionary movement. Following the fall of the regime, a transitional government consisting of military and civilian members was established in summer 2019. In October 2021, the transitional government in the Sudanese capital Khartoum was overthrown by military forces, which blocked the path to democratic elections and ultimately led to an armed conflict between the coup plotters in April 2023. Before the war broke out, weekly protests against the military coup took place across the country, calling for a civilian government. Confronted with setbacks, violence and death, a growing sense of frustration spread among the protestors, hampering efforts to maintain a sense of change. The memory of the revolutionaries who had been killed played a central role in these marches and commemorations. Slogans about martyrs filled revolutionary poems, songs, wall inscriptions and murals. In my talk, I focus on the visual depiction of martyrs and the practices of mourning and commemorating protesters killed in the post-coup demonstrations. I explore how martyrs were imagined and cultivated, but also contested, by examining aesthetic practices that bind people and values together, and create commitments and affective bonds between protesters.

Valerie Hänsch holds a PhD from the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS). She has worked as a lecturer at the University of Bayreuth, LMU Munich, the University of Khartoum and the University of Vienna. Her research has focused on technologies, large-scale infrastructures, socio-ecological changes and displacement in the Sudan. She also worked in a collaborative research project on Sudanese audiovisual heritage and image restitution at the Ethnological Museum in Berlin. Her current research explores the links between activism, aesthetic practices and affect in the revolutionary process in Sudan. As a visual anthropologist, she has produced several collaborative ethnographic films. Her film “Sifinja – The Iron Bride” (2009) has been awarded several prizes. She is co-editor of the special journal issue “Temporalities of Waiting in Africa” (Critical African Studies, 2020) and is author of the monograph “The Attempt to Stay.  Dam Building, Displacement, and Resistance in the Nile Valley, Sudan” (Berghahn Books, 2024).

This lecture is open to the public.

For virtual participation via Zoom, please use the following link:

https://uni-freiburg.zoom-x.de/j/61945420177?pwd=11U4WH83bFbDygaOAUwgw6a7lCtyfG.1

Meeting-ID: 619 4542 0177
Code: 2B7E1ceNt