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African studies

Topic: Philosophy

 From HandWiki - Reading time: 5 min
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)
  • Anthony Kirk-Greene (1925-2018)
  • 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)
  • Yusufu Bala Usman (1945-2005)
  • Jan Vansina (1929-2017)
  • Diedrich Westermann (1875–1956)
  • Ivor Wilks (1928-2014)
  • Andrzej Zajączkowski (1922–1994)

University-based centers

  • Austria: Institut für Afrikawissenschaften (est. 2007), University of Vienna [1]
  • 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: Department of African Studies, Humboldt University, Germany
  • Germany: Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt University, Germany
  • Germany: Institute of African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany
  • Germany: Institute of African Studies, University of Leipzig, Germany
  • Netherlands: African Studies Centre, Leiden[3]
  • Nigeria: Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan
  • Portugal: Centro de Estudos Africanos [pt], ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon
  • Portugal: African Studies Centre of the University of Porto, Porto[4]
  • 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 for African Studies (Leeds)
  • 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, Boston University
  • US: African Studies Center, Michigan State University
  • US: African Studies Center, UCLA
  • US: Africana Cultures and Policy Studies Institute
  • 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

  • Nordic Africa Institute
  • Africa Research Institute

Associations

Projects

  • Bamum Scripts and Archives Project
  • Timbuktu Manuscripts Project
  • Internet library sub-saharan Africa (ilissAfrica)

Degree programs

Canada

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

Egypt

Ethiopia

  • University of Addis Ababa, Center for African Studies

Germany

Ghana

  • University of Ghana Masters and PhD in African Studies

Netherlands

Nigeria

  • University of Ibadan, Nigeria Masters and PhD in African Studies

Switzerland

United Kingdom

United States of America

  • Beloit College, African Studies Minor - Interdisciplinary undergraduate minor field of concentration
  • Florida International University, Masters in African Studies, African Studies Certificates
  • Howard University, undergraduate minor and major in African Studies, Masters in African Studies, PhD in African Studies
  • Ohio University, Masters in African Studies
  • 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.

See also

  • List of African studies journals
  • Africa Bibliography for a categorised list of publications in the field since 1984
  • Pan-Africanism
  • Africana studies
  • Cinema of Africa
  • Ethiopian studies and Ethiopian historiography

References

  1. ↑ Mamdani, M. (1996), Chapter 1 from Mamdani, M., Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism.
  2. ↑ Tribute in ACAS Review 89, incl. bibliography (2015)
  3. ↑ For the history of African studies in the Netherlands, see Abbink, J.: African studies in the Netherlands: a brief survey, SCOLMA 87, 3-10, 2001
  4. ↑ Centro de Estudos Africanos da Universidade do Porto

Further reading

  • Gershenhorn, Jerry. “‘Not an Academic Affair’: African American Scholars and the Development of African Studies Programs in the United States, 1942–1960.” Journal of African American History, 94 (Winter 2009), 44–68.
  • Gershenhorn, Jerry. “St. Clair Drake, Pan-Africanism, African Studies, and the Politics of Knowledge, 1945-1965.” Journal of African American History, 98 (Summer 2013), 422-433.

External links

Library Guides for African Studies




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