African studies

Africa

African studies is the study of Africa, especially the continent's cultures and societies (as opposed to its geology, geography, zoology, etc.). The field includes the study of Africa's history (Pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial), demography (ethnic groups), culture, politics, economy, languages, and religion (Islam, Christianity, traditional religions). A specialist in African studies is often referred to as an "Africanist". A key focus of the discipline is to interrogate epistemological approaches, theories and methods in traditional disciplines using a critical lens that inserts African-centred ways of knowing and references.

For Africanists, also known as communitarians, problems within Africa are thought to be caused because the real flesh-and-blood communities that comprise Africa are marginalized from public life as so many "tribes". Therefore, the solution is understood to be the need to defend culture and put Africa's age-old communities at the center of African politics. It is also argued that there is a need to "deexoticize" Africa and banalise it, rather than understand Africa as exceptionalized and exoticized.^[1]

Notable deceased Africanists

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
J. F. Ade Ajayi (1929-2014)
Abdulrahman Mohamed Babu (1924-1996)
François Bassolet (1933-2001)
Albert Adu Boahen (1932–2006)
Amílcar Cabral (1924-1973)
Gwendolen M. Carter (1906-1991)
Patrick Chabal (1951-2014)
John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998)
Basil Davidson (1914-2010)
Kenneth Dike (1917-1983)
Cheikh Anta Diop (1923–1986)
Stephen Ellis (1953-2015)
John Fage (1921–2002)
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
Joseph Greenberg (1915-2001)
Marcel Griaule (1898-1956)
William Leo Hansberry (1894-1965)
Melville Herskovits (1895-1963)
Manuel Iradier (1854–1911)
Ali Mazrui (1933-2014)
Orishatukeh Faduma (1855-1946)
Carl Meinhof (1857–1944)
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
Julius Nyerere (1922-1999)
Roland Oliver (1923-2014)
Jean Price-Mars (1876–1969)
Terence Ranger (1929-2015)^[2]
Robert Sutherland Rattray (1881–1938)
Walter Rodney (1942–1980)
Justinian Rweyemamu (1942-1982)
Jean Suret-Canale (1921–2007)
Ivan van Sertima (1935-2009)
Jan Vansina (1929-2017)
Diedrich Westermann (1875–1956)
Ivor Wilks (1928-2014)
Andrzej Zajączkowski (1922–1994)

University-based centers

Canada: Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON
China: School of Asian and African Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University
China: School of Asian and African Studies, Shanghai International Studies University
Ethiopia: Center for African Studies, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Germany: Institute of African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany
Germany: Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany
Netherlands: African Studies Centre, Leiden
Nigeria: Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Portugal: Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto | African Studies Centre of the University of Porto, Porto
South Africa: Centre for African Studies (CAS), University of Cape Town
Sweden: Center for African Studies, Dalarna University, Sweden
UK: Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge
UK: Centre of West African Studies (Birmingham)
UK: School of Oriental and African Studies
US: Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
US: African Studies Center, Michigan State University
US: University of Florida Center for African Studies
US: Department of African Studies at Howard University
US: Center for African Studies at Howard University

National and transnational centers

Associations

African Studies Association (North America)
AEGIS (Europe)
African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific (Australasia and the Pacific)
ASAUK

Projects

Degree programs

United States of America

Howard University, undergraduate minor and major in African Studies, Masters in African Studies, PhD in African Studies
Florida International University, Masters in African Studies, African Studies Certificates
Ohio University, Masters in African Studies
Beloit College, African Studies Minor - Interdisciplinary undergraduate minor field of concentration
Rutgers University, undergraduate major and minor in African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures, with a regional focus
University of Michigan, undergraduate major and minor in Afroamerican and African Studies. Also, a certificate in African Studies for graduate students.

Canada

Carleton University, Institute of African Studies - Combined Honours Undergraduate Degrees and Collaborative Masters in African Studies

Egypt

Cairo University, Institute of African Research and Studies

Ethiopia

University of Addis Ababa, Center for African Studies

Ghana

University of Ghana Masters and PhD in African Studies

Nigeria

University of Ibadan, Nigeria Masters and PhD in African Studies

Switzerland

University of Basel, Center for African Studies Basel - MA African Studies

United Kingdom

University of Cambridge, Centre of African Studies - MPhil in African Studies

References

↑ Mamdani, M. (1996), Chapter 1 from Mamdani, M., Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism.
↑ Tribute in ACAS Review 89, incl. bibliography (2015)

ASA Distinguished Africanist Award Winners

External links

African e-Journals Project, Michigan State University (Provides (1) a directory of more than 2,100 journals about Africa with their URLs, and where to find tables of contents, abstracts, and full text of articles online, and (2) a full-text archive of back issues of 11 African scholarly journals in the social sciences and humanities.)
African Studies Centres worldwide (Excerpt of the website database of ilissAfrica)
AFRICAN STUDY: African Language Publishing For Children In South Africa (This African study focuses on the dearth of teaching and learning materials in African languages required to deliver effective bilingual education, and on the potential role of translation in offering solutions for this problem.)
Davis Bullwinkle (ed.). "AfricaBib.org" – via Afrika-Studiecentrum, Leiden. Africana social science titles (Bibliography)

Library Guides for African Studies

"Help for Researchers: Africa". British Library.
"African Studies Research Guides". New York, USA: Columbia University Libraries.
"African Studies & African History". Research & Subject Guides. Washington DC: Georgetown University Library.
"African Studies Internet Portal". University of Illinois LibGuides. USA: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University Library.
"African Studies". LibGuides. USA: University of Iowa Libraries.
Library. "African Studies". Topic Guides. UK: London School of Economics and Political Science.
"Africana (African Studies)". Research Guides. USA: Michigan State University Libraries.
"Africana Studies". Research Guides. USA: New York University Libraries.
"Africana". LibGuides. USA: Northwestern University, Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies.
"African Studies". Oxford LibGuides. Oxford, UK: University of Oxford, Bodleian Libraries.
"African Studies Resources". Princeton LibGuides. USA: Princeton University Library.
University Libraries. "African Studies". Research Guides. New Jersey, USA: Rutgers University.
African Studies Library, Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge UK
Studying Africa. A guide to the sources. Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala. 3rd ed., 2014
Open Access Guide for researchers based in Africa (ilissAfrica)

Regional Cultural studies
Local	African studies American studies Arab studies Asian studies European studies Germanic studies Indian studies Jewish studies Russian studies Latin American studies Oceanic studies Slavic studies
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