The SOAS School of African History

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shobana Shankar
Keyword(s):  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Bachelor Of Arts ◽  
International Standing ◽  
The University

Founded in 1916, the School of African Studies at the University of London provided training in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern languages and history to colonial officers. Over more than a century, the transformation of African history at the SOAS from an imperial discipline to one centered on African experiences reveals challenges in the creation, use, and dissemination of ideas, or the politics of knowledge. The school, as the only institution of higher learning in Europe focused on Africa, Asia, and Middle East, has had to perform a balancing act between scholars’ motivation to challenge academic skeptics and racists who dismissed Africa and British governmental, political, and economic priorities that valued “practical education.” In 1948, the University of London took steps to create an international standing by affiliating several institutions in Africa. Over several decades, many historians preferred to teach in Africa because the climate in Britain was far less open to African history. SOAS convened international conferences in 1953, 1957, and 1961 that established the reputation of African history at the SOAS. Research presented at these meetings were published in the first volume of the Journal of African History with a subsidy from the Rockefeller Foundation. The first volumes of the journal were focused on oral history, historical linguistics, archaeology, and political developments in precolonial Africa, topics covered extensively at SOAS. SOAS grew considerably up until 1975, when area studies all over Britain underwent a period of contraction. Despite economic and personnel cuts, SOAS continued research and teaching especially on precolonial Africa, which has periodically been feared to be subsumed by modern history and not fitting into visions for “practical” courses. In the late 1980s, the school introduced an interdisciplinary bachelor of arts degree in African studies that requires African language study because so many students were specializing in Africa without it. This measure reveals the lasting commitment to engaging African voices. African history at the SOAS has also continued to be a humanistic enterprise, and in 2002, it was reorganized into the School of Religion, History, and Philosophies. It remains to be seen how Brexit might affect higher education. While cuts in education could hurt African studies more than other area studies as they often have, strained relations between Britain and continental Europe might make African countries more important to Britain in the coming years.

African Studies in Colorado

1969 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 516-517
Author(s):  
Ragaei El Mallakh
Keyword(s):  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The State ◽  
African Studies ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Colorado State University ◽  
University Of Denver ◽  
Equal Importance ◽  
Bachelor Of Arts ◽  
High Level ◽  
The University

In the past two years there has been an upsurge in interest in African studies in the State, particularly through the activities of the faculties of the Universities of Colorado and Denver, and Colorado State University. Beginning in the 1967–68 academic year, the University of Colorado offered a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and Middle Eastern Studies, and is expanding its graduate courses with a multi-disciplinary approach. In the spring of 1969 the Center on International Race Relations at the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Denver began operation with primary emphasis on Africa and Asia. Of equal importance, however, is the high level of co-operation in African studies among the institutions of higher learning throughout the State. This effort involves the maximisation of Africanist talent via the exchange of staff and students, and regional meetings and conferences.

Some Perceptions on the Writing of African History: 1948-1992

Itinerario ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vansina
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Local History ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
University College ◽  
The University ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Colonial Office

African history was really born on a specific date and its parent was Prof. Phillips, then heading the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in London. It began when the learned Collins and Asquith commissions advocated the upgrading of schools in four different parts of the continent (Nigeria, Ghana, Sudan and Uganda) to University College status whereupon the Colonial Office looked for a university in Great Britain to guarantee programming and quality and passed that job unto the University of London which in turn promptly passed much of the burden unto SOAS. Although no funds were attached to this Phillips accepted and eventually did get funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, to the greater glory of SOAS. Meanwhile however he had visited East Africa and he had been struck there in 1947 by the absence of ‘native histories’ such as one finds so thickly on the ground in his usual playing ground India. He decided to hire an historian of Africa who would both supervise the development of history departments in the new colleges and work to remedy this lack of local history.

scholarly journals Recordings of African Popular Music: A Valuable Source for Historians of Africa

2004 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 389-391
Author(s):  
Veit Arlt ◽  
Ernst Lichtenhahn
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
Swiss Society ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Valuable Source ◽  
Basel Mission ◽  
The University

In December 2002 the Swiss Society for Ethnomusicology (CH-EM), in cooperation with the Centre for African Studies of the University of Basel and with mission 21 (formerly Basel Mission), organized a symposium on the theme “Popular Music from Ghana: Historical Records as a Contribution to the Study of African History and Culture.” The conference concluded a week of lectures, workshops, and concerts with Ghanaian “palmwine” and Highlife music, a program which was realized in cooperation with the Basel Academy of Music and the two associations, Ghana Popular Music 1931-1957 and Scientific African e.V. The papers read at the symposium are, in our opinion, of interest to the readers of History in Africa, as they discuss a specific kind of source and the methodological issues pertaining to it, as well as offer insights into possible themes of research, giving some idea of the potential of the recordings as a source. We present the contributions here in a slightly revised form, and, in order to round off the discussion, we have invited the curators of two further sound collections of interest to scholars working on African history, to describe their archives.

scholarly journals Mwendoni-ire Z K”

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Julius Gathogo ◽  
Margaret W. Gitumu
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Responsible Leadership ◽  
African History ◽  
African Culture ◽  
Bachelor Of Arts ◽  
Pentecostal Churches ◽  
The University ◽  
Responsible Leader ◽  
Mission Churches

In this article, Professor ZK Mathews is not only seen as a responsible leader in his own right but more importantly, he is seen as a prominent educationist in the complex socio-political situation of apartheid South Africa. “Mwendoni-ire Z K” (beloved ZK) became the first African to obtain a Bachelor of Arts Degree (BA) at the University of South Africa, in 1924. His other public roles as ANC founder, Ambassador, an educationist, activist for social justice, a Pan-Africanist, and an ecumenist makes him one of a kind. As both a community and church leader, the article seeks to assess his display of social responsibility in the dark period of African history when separate development was the vogue. Did he act responsibly in addressing social issues during his heydays? What didn’t he do during his lifetimes? Are there critical communal issues that he failed to do yet he had an opportunity which he did not exhaustively utilize? To this end, this article builds on the premise that the spread of Christianity in Africa, its shape and character, has been the by-product of responsible Leadership, both in the Mission Churches/mainline churches and in the African Instituted Churches, and even from within the emerging afro-Pentecostal churches. Without responsible leadership on the part of the Africans themselves, the spread of Christianity in Africa would have nose-dived. In categorising the three brands of Christianity in Africa, it is critical to acknowledge that, Mission Churches are those that evolved directly from the outreach of Western denominations; afro-Pentecostals are those who consciously or unconsciously allow a measure of dialogue between Pentecostalism and some elements of African culture in their discourses; while African initiated Churches are those Churches which were born in Africa, and were primarily begun by Africans themselves as they protested western intrusion and subjugation of their cultures as Africans. In view of this, ZK is viewed as a responsible leader who confronted social ecclesial matters with a reasonable degree of success.

Symposium on the City of Freetown

1966 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 537-538
Author(s):  
Michael Crowder
Keyword(s):  
Economic Structure ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Presence Africaine ◽  
The University ◽  
The City

The Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College organised a symposium on the city of Freetown which brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the history and present social and economic structure of Freetown, under the joint directorship of Professor Eldred Jones, head of the Department of English at Fourah Bay College, and Christopher Fyfe, Reader in African History at Edinburgh University. A similar project on Ibadan was undertaken at the Institute of African Studies at the University there in 1963 and the collected papers are soon to be published by Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Peter Lloyd, Akin Mabogunje, and Bolanle Awe. More recently the University of Dakar held a series of discussions about Dakar and the resulting papers are to be published by Présence Africaine.

J.H. Kwabena Nketia

Music ◽  
2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Rockefeller Foundation ◽  
Field Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
African Studies ◽  
London School ◽  
Birkbeck College ◽  
The University

Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia (b. 22 June 1921–d. 13 March 2019) from Ghana was the preeminent scholar of African musics, whose field research in the 1940s in varied ways formed the foundation of music scholarship in Africa and predated ethnomusicology as an academic discipline in the United States. A prolific writer, music educator, and composer, his publications on key topics in African musicology are pivotal to the transdisciplinary field of African studies. Born and raised in Asante Mampong, Nketia was tutored in two worlds of knowledge systems: his traditional musical environment generated and sustained a lifelong interest in indigenous systems, and his European-based formal education provided the space for scholarship at home and around the world. At the Presbyterian Training College at Akropong-Akwapem, he was introduced to the elements of European music by Robert Danso and Ephraim Amu. The latter’s choral and instrumental music in the African idiom made a lasting impression on Nketia as he combined oral compositional conventions in traditional music with compositional models in European classical music in his own written compositions. From 1944 to 1949, Nketia studied modern linguistics in SOAS at the University of London. His mentor was John Firth, who spearheaded the famous London school of linguistics. He also enrolled at the Trinity College of Music and Birkbeck College to study Western music, English, and history. The result of his studies in linguistics and history are the publications of classic texts cited in this bibliography. From 1952 to 1979, Nketia held positions at the University of Ghana including a research fellow in sociology, the founding director of the School of Performing Arts, and the first African director of the Institute of African Studies; and together with Mawere Opoku, he established the Ghana Dance Ensemble. This was a time that he embarked on extensive field research and documentation of music traditions all over Ghana. His students and the school provided creative outlets for his scholarly publications as he trained generations of Ghanaians. In 1958, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship enabled Nketia to study composition and musicology at Juilliard and Columbia with the likes of Henry Cowell, and he came out convinced that his compositions should reflect his African identity. Further, he interacted with Curt Sachs, Melville Herskovits, Alan Merriam, and Mantle Hood, which placed Nketia at the center of intellectual debates in the formative years of ethnomusicology. From 1979 to 1983, Nketia was appointed to the faculty of the Institute of Ethnomusicology at UCLA; and from 1983 to 1991, to the Mellon Chair at the University of Pittsburgh, where he trained generations of Americans and Africans. Nketia returned to Ghana and founded the International Center for African Music and Dance (1992–2010) and also served as the first chancellor of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology (2006–2016). Joseph Hanson Kwabena Nketia died in Accra and was honored with a state burial on 4 May 2019 by the Government of Ghana.

The Future of Africa's Past: Observations on the Discipline

2007 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heike Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Students ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Western World ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
The Future ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
The University

In April 2007 David William Cohen and his graduate students held a symposium on the future of African Studies at the University of Michigan. David Cohen, two graduate students—Isabelle de Rezende and Clapperton Mavhunga—as well as five invited speakers with different disciplinary backgrounds—Pius Adesanmi, Tim Burke, Jennifer Cole, Paul Zeleza, and myself—contributed papers. The purpose of the conference, entitled “2020: Re-Envisioning African Studies,” was twofold. First, it appeared timely to reflect yet again on the state of African Studies in disciplinary-based and area studies departments. Second, David Cohen had the idea of 2020 representing both the utopia of ideal vision and the concrete question of what the field might look like when the graduate students participating might conceive their second book projects. What follows are the thoughts—not a list of solutions—by a historian who has studied in three academic contexts—Germany, Zimbabwe, Britain—who has taught in as many—Britain, Germany, USA—and who has gathered experience both in area and disciplinary-based departments.Finding one's intellectual home in area studies is problematic for a range of reasons, not least for the exoticization and marginalization of non-western world regions in the global flows of ideas. At the same time, African Studies make for a comfortable sense of belonging. This is a community of scholars who provide a productive and engaging, if at times impassioned, conversation with colleagues across disciplinary boundaries, time periods, and the great diversity of African and diasporic societies and regions. The question is: what place does the historical discipline occupy within this field, and what is its future?

African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin

1965 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 429-430
Author(s):  
M. Crawford Young
Keyword(s):  
Faculty Members ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
University Departments ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
A Minor ◽  
The University

The African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin was established in September 1961, thus formalising the co-operation which had been developing over several years between faculty members in various disciplines and departments with research and teaching interests in Africa. The Program provides a centre for the co-ordination of such teaching and research. A certificate in African studies may be obtained in association with an M.A. degree in one of the university departments; at the Ph.D. level, African studies may be offered as a minor field.

The Struggle for African Area Studies: A View from Wisconsin

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-44
Author(s):  
Richard D. Ralston
Keyword(s):  
African Studies ◽  
Job Market ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
International Language ◽  
University Of Wisconsin ◽  
Title Vi ◽  
The University

Three separate but related issues made an unforgettable impression on me during 1982-1985, the three years that I chaired the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Today, they seem daunting and no less diminished: 1) the perennial threats of severe cuts in federal Title VI funding for international language and area studies, 2) the apparent demoralization of area studies graduates owing to a gloomy job market picture, and, despite these blows, 3) the continuing, demonstrated importance of African Area Studies to our campuses and society at large.

J.D. Fage 1921–2002

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
African Studies ◽  
African History ◽  
Executive Council ◽  
European Continent ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University

In John Fage's company one never felt subject to demands that his eminence be ritually acknowledged. Somehow he did not require this kind of reassurance and managed to be utterly free of pomp. Though he was the founder of our Birmingham Centre of West African Studies, he did not expect the rest of us to see its headship as his natural preserve. In the 1970s he unsuccessfully tried to modify the conditions of his university appointment so as to pass on the directorship to each of his CWAS colleagues in rotation, independent of rank. He was a man of elegant deportment and refined manners, cultivating what now seems an old-worldly reticence about his feelings and achievements. (At the time that oh so very British style could already induce some amusement in barbarians from, say, the European continent, South Africa, or South America. But some other styles that have become current since make one remember the old dispensation with nostalgic fondness).All he did was done effortlessly, or so his behavior seemed to suggest: running CWAS, being a family man, co-founding (1960) and co-editing (up to 1973) with Roland Oliver the Journal of African History, co-editing (also with Oliver) the Cambridge History of Africa, authoring successful and much reprinted books, supervising theses, teaching undergraduates, helping to launch and edit the UNESCO General History of Africa, serving as the first Honorary Secretary of the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom, serving in the Executive Council of the International African Institute, fulfilling increasingly senior functions in the government of the University of Birmingham, and this is not a complete list.

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