African Studies

African Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Africa about their new books.

Samuel Fury Childs Daly, "Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

November 16, 2024

Soldier's Paradise

Samuel Fury Childs Daly

In Soldier's Paradise: Militarism in Africa After Empire (Duke UP, 2024), Samuel Fury Childs Daly tells the story of how Africa’s military dictators t…

Amín Pérez, "Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle" (Polity Press, 2023)

November 9, 2024

Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire

Amín Pérez
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How did the Algerian war of independence shape contemporary sociology? In Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire: Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggl…

Doyle D. Calhoun, "The Suicide Archive: Reading Resistance in the Wake of French Empire" (Duke UP, 2024)

November 6, 2024

The Suicide Archive

Doyle D. Calhoun
Hosted by Sarah Miles

A note about content: This episode involves discussion of suicide, specifically in the contexts of slavery, colonization and empire. Please use your…

Mara Kardas-Nelson, "We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky: The Seductive Promise of Microfinance" (Metropolitan Books, 2024)

November 5, 2024

We Are Not Able to Live in the Sky

Mara Kardas-Nelson
Hosted by Nick Pozek

In this deeply researched and compelling narrative, journalist Mara Kardas-Nelson examines the complex history and impact of microfinance - the practi…

Mirin Fader, "Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon" (Hachette, 2024)

November 2, 2024

Dream

Mirin Fader
Hosted by Paul Knepper

It’s now the norm for NBA and collegiate teams to have international players dotting their rosters. The Olympics are no longer a gimme for Team USA. B…

Corey Ross, "Liquid Empire: Water and Power in the Colonial World" (Princeton UP, 2024)

October 17, 2024

Liquid Empire

Corey Ross
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a handful of powerful European states controlled more than a third of the land surface of the planet. These…

Christian Velasco, "Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age" (Routledge, 2024)

October 15, 2024

Commercial Banking in Kenya

Christian Velasco

Commercial Banking in Kenya: A History from Colonisation to Digital Age (Routledge, 2024) investigates the impact of commercial banks in Kenya right t…

Sharad Chari, "Apartheid Remains" (Duke UP, 2024)

October 13, 2024

Apartheid Remains

Sharad Chari
Hosted by Geoffrey Gordon

Over the course of the 20th century, the South African state attempted to construct a “White Man’s Country” on the African continent using the biopoli…

Boris Adjemian, "The Brass Band of the King: Armenians in Ethiopia" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

October 12, 2024

The Brass Band of the King

Boris Adjemian
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In 1924, the crown prince and future emperor of Ethiopia, Ras Täfäri, on a visit to Jerusalem, called on forty Armenian orphans who had survived the g…

Migration, Constraints, and Suffering: A Discussion with Marco Santello

October 12, 2024

Migration, Constraints, and Suffering

Marco Santello

A key part of the experience of migration is not being in full control of one’s circumstances and doing. In this episode, Ingrid Piller speaks with Ma…

Uroš Kovač, "The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, Pentecostalism, and Transnational Aspirations in Cameroon" (Berghahn Books, 2022)

September 30, 2024

The Precarity of Masculinity

Uroš Kovač
Hosted by Yadong Li

A compelling work that explores the lives and aspirations of young footballers with deep nuance and insight, The Precarity of Masculinity: Football, P…

Caree A. Banton, "More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

September 21, 2024

More Auspicious Shores

Caree A. Banton
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Caree A. Banton's book More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic (Cambridge UP, 2019) c…

Joanna Allan, "Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea" (U Wisconsin Press, 2019)

September 20, 2024

Silenced Resistance

Joanna Allan
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Spain's former African colonies-Equatorial Guinea and Western Sahara-share similar histories. Both are under the thumbs of heavy-handed, postcolonial …

Why Almost Everything You Think about Protests in Africa is Wrong

September 19, 2024

Why Almost Everything You Think about Protests in Africa is Wrong

Zoe Marks
Hosted by Nic Cheeseman

For decades, media and academic analysis of African politics has emphasised instability, political violence, and male dominance. Yet a brilliant new a…

David Zeitlyn, "Mambila Divination: Framing Questions, Constructing Answers" (Routledge, 2021)

September 7, 2024

Mambila Divination

David Zeitlyn

Professor David Zeitlyn’s book offers a major contribution to the study and analysis of divination, based on continuing fieldwork with the Mambila in …

Robin E. Möser, "Disarming Apartheid: The End of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Programme and Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 1968–1991" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

August 26, 2024

Disarming Apartheid

Robin E. Möser
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

South Africa remains the only state that developed a nuclear weapons capability, but ultimately decided to dismantle existing weapons and abandon the …

Marie-Eve Desrosiers, "Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda: Elusive Control Before the Genocide" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

August 26, 2024

Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda

Marie-Eve Desrosiers
Hosted by Susan Thomson

Marie-Eve Desrosiers (Univ. of Ottawa) has written a wonderful book. Trajectories of Authoritarianism in Rwanda: Elusive Control Before the Genocide (…

Carole Ammann, "Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea: Silent Politics" (Routledge, 2020)

August 18, 2024

Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea

Carole Ammann
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Women, Agency, and the State in Guinea: Silent Politics (Routledge, 2020) examines how women in Guinea articulate themselves politically within and ou…

Vanessa S. Oliveira, "Slave Trade and Abolition: Gender, Commerce, and Economic Transition in Luanda" (U Wisconsin Press, 2021)

August 18, 2024

Slave Trade and Abolition

Vanessa S. Oliveira
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Well into the early nineteenth century, Luanda, the administrative capital of Portuguese Angola, was one of the most influential ports for the transat…

Abbey Stockstill, "Marrakesh and the Mountains: Landscape, Urban Planning, and Identity in the Medieval Maghrib" (Penn State UP, 2024)

August 16, 2024

Marrakesh and the Mountains

Abbey Stockstill
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Over the course of the Almoravid (1040–1147) and Almohad (1121–1269) dynasties, mediaeval Marrakesh evolved from an informal military encampment into …