Global Africa Month 2023 : Pan Africanism, African Liberation, and the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale

25.05.2023

A talk by Dennis Laumann, Department of History, University of Memphis, USA

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, the largest military confrontation on the African continent since World War II that resulted in the end of white minority, racist colonial rule in southern Africa. Though historians have depicted the battle in Angola as a confrontation between Revolutionary Cuba and apartheid South Africa, the reality is the South African Defense Forces were

defeated by a Pan-Africanist army comprising Angolans, Cubans, Namibians, South Africans, and other Black soldiers. The victory at Cuito Cuanavale resulted in a series of extraordinary events including the independence of Namibia, the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. This lecture will consider the historical significance of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, its Pan-Africanist dimensions and legacies, and the role of Cuba in African liberation.
Dennis Laumann, PhD is Professor of African History at the Department of History, University of Memphis, USA since fall 2016. He did his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in June 1999. His Dissertation entitled “Remembering and Forgetting the German Occupation of the Central Volta Region of Ghana.” Dr. Laumann is a specialist in West African history, especially the history of Ghana; colonialism; oral history; links between Cuba and Africa; and Marxist theory and history. He is a United States Fulbright Scholar and Research Affiliate of the University of Ghana. Dr. Laumann serves on the Advisory Board of the Ghana Studies Association and as co-editor of the Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. Dr. Laumann's current projects include a monograph on historic links between Africa and Cuba.

Thursday, 25 May 2023, 6pm
Department of African Studies - Seminar room 1

University Campus, court 5.1.,  Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Vienna
afrika@univie.ac.at,  afrika.univie.ac.at