One of the joys of Academe is being surrounded by intelligent and industrious people who are constantly working to expand and deepen our understanding of the human condition. I will have an opportunity to share in that excitement by attending a public lecture on October 28, 2014. The talk will be by Dr. Peter Dumbuya who recently came back from a year abroad as a Fulbright Scholar in Sierra Leone. The project was to examine, as Professor Dumbuya puts it, "sexual violence and other traumatic wartime experiences of women and girls during the civil war" in Sierra Leone that spanned the last decade of the twentieth century. Females were systematically targeted by all the warring factions, and Dr. Dumbuya's research examines the legal and cultural structures and preferences that enabled such practices.

He is also interested in examining what happened after the fighting as the government looked to bring women and girls back into society. Legal remedies were "enacted to empower women and girls and end gender-based bias, discrimination, and violence," but there has not been a serious study of the effectiveness of such measures until Dr. Dumbuya's work.

The talk, titled Operation Liberate the Motherland, is open and free to all and will take place on October 28 from noon to one in Pettigrew Center.

Dr. Dumbuya's talk will also serve to launch the College of Arts and Sciences Researcher Series which will feature Fort Valley State University researchers and scholars.




Dr. Dumbuya has published numerous articles and several books, the most recent of which is Reinventing the Colonial State: Constitutionalism, One-Party Rule, and Civil War in Sierra Leone.