African Studies

African Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Africa about their new books.

Timothy Mason Roberts, "After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires" (Cornell UP, 2025)

May 28, 2026

After Barbary

Timothy Mason Roberts
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

After Barbary: Algeria's Roles in the French and American Empires (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Timothy Mason Roberts explores the connectio…

Inken Von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas, "Exit from International Organizations: Costly Negotiation for Institutional Change” (Cambridge UP, 2025)

May 18, 2026

Exit from International Organizations

Inken von Borzyskowski and Felicity Vabulas

Why do states exit international organizations (IOs)? How often does exit from IOs – including voluntary withdrawal and forced suspension – occur? Wha…

Robert Rouphail, "Cyclonic Lives in an Indian Ocean World: Environment, Disaster, and Identity in Modern Mauritius" (Ohio UP, 2026)

May 18, 2026

Cyclonic Lives in an Indian Ocean World

Robert M. Rouphail
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In a world marked by increasingly destructive ecological and meteorological upheavals, Cyclonic Lives in an Indian Ocean World: Environment, Disaster,…

Samiha Rahman, "Black Muslim Freedom Dreams: Islamic Education, Pan-Africanism, and Collective Care" (NYU Press, 2026)

May 11, 2026

Black Muslim Freedom Dreams

Samiha Rahman
Hosted by Shobhana Xavier

Samiha Rahman’s Black Muslim Freedom Dreams: Islamic Education, Pan-Africanism, and Collective Care (New York University Press, 2026) follows three ge…

Young People and Democracy in Africa: Between Engagement and Disillusionment

May 11, 2026

Young People and Democracy in Africa

Cynthia Mbamalu
Hosted by Temitayo Odeyemi

What explains the growing tension between young people and democracy in Africa? Why are some increasingly frustrated, disengaged, or even open to auth…

Mariam Goshadze, "The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars" (Duke UP, 2025)

May 10, 2026

The Noise Silence Makes

Mariam Goshadze

In The Noise Silence Makes: Secularity and Ghana's Drum Wars (Duke UP, 2025) Mariam Goshadze traces the history of noise regulation in Accra, Ghana, s…

10.4 Place Presents Itself To You in Fragments: Ivan Vladislavić and Jeanne-Marie Jackson (MAT)

May 7, 2026

Place Presents Itself To You in Fragments

Hosted by Novel Dialogue

How to write about place is a question that cuts across the career of the South African Ivan Vladislavić. The questions of place and space are pressin…

Jeremy Harding's Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-Colonial Imagination

May 5, 2026

Analogue Africa

Jeremy Harding
Hosted by Leonard Benardo

Jeremy Harding has long been one of the premier essayists and journalists of our day. Elegant, committed and free of cant, Harding's writing has often…

D. Vance Smith, "Atlas’s Bones: The African Foundations of Europe" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

May 2, 2026

Atlas's Bones

D. Vance Smith

A major new look at Africa’s influence on European culture and how colonization remade Africa in the image of a medieval Europe. Virgil. Chaucer.…

Rhea Rahman, "Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown, and White" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)

April 29, 2026

Racializing the Ummah

Rhea Rahman
Hosted by Amanie Antar

Racializing the Ummah: Muslim Humanitarians Beyond Black, Brown and White (U Minnesota Press, 2026) is an ethnography of Islamic Relief (IR), the larg…

Oil and Militancy in Nigeria: A Conversation with Noo Saro-Wiwa

April 26, 2026

The Burning Ground

Noo Saro-Wiwa
Hosted by Ayisha Osori

Noo Saro-Wiwa is an author and journalist. Born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and raised in England, she attended King's College London and Columbia Univ…

Michael W. Tuck, "The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World" (Brill, 2026)

April 8, 2026

The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River

Michael W. Tuck
Hosted by Amisah Bakuri

In his new book, The Castle Slaves of the Gambia River: A Creole Community in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World (Brill, 2026) historian Dr. Michae…

Bimbola Akinbola, "Transatlantic Disbelonging: Unruliness, Pleasure, and Play in Nigerian Diasporic Women's Art" (Duke UP, 2025)

April 6, 2026

Transatlantic Disbelonging

Bimbola Akinbola
Hosted by Abigail Celis

In Transatlantic Disbelonging: Unruliness, Pleasure and Play in Nigerian Diasporic Women's Art (Duke University Press, 2025), Bimbola Akinbola redirec…

Stephen Onyango Ouma, "Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation" (Brill, 2026)

April 5, 2026

Africa Unbound

Stephen Onyango Ouma
Hosted by Amisah Bakuri

I had a substantive conversation with Dr. Stephen Onyango Ouma, author of Africa Unbound: Decolonial Pathways to Sovereignty and Liberation (Brill, 20…

Hilary Matfess, "After Liberation: Women and the Politics of Expectations in Rebel-to-Party Transitions" (Stanford UP, 2026)

April 5, 2026

After Liberation

Hilary Matfess
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

War offers opportunities for women to liberate their communities and build a better life for themselves. When women join rebel groups, they often take…

Jeanne-Marie Jackson, "The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa" (Princeton UP, 2026)

March 31, 2026

The Letter of the Law in J. E. Casely Hayford's West Africa

Jeanne-Marie Jackson

The African Gold Coast writer and statesman J. E. Casely Hayford (1866–1930) was a key figure in liberal anticolonial thought as well as African and B…

Emmanuel Ofuasia, "Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics" (Springer, 2024)

March 29, 2026

Ìwà: the Process-Relational Dimension to African Metaphysics

Emmanuel Ofuasia
Hosted by Jessica Zu

Correction: In the interview, the host mistakenly mentioned that Prof. Ofuasia is teaching the University of Pretoria. In reality, Prof Ofuasia is cur…

Michael Allan, "Cinema before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Brothers" (Fordham UP, 2026)

March 29, 2026

Cinema before the World

Michael Allan
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Cinema Before the World: The Global Routes of the Lumière Brothers (Fordham UP, 2026) investigates the transnational origins of filmmaking by focusing…

Ainehi Edoro, "Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think" (Columbia UP, 2026)

March 29, 2026

Forest Imaginaries

Ainehi Edoro

Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the fo…

James McDougall, "Worlds of Islam: A Global History" (Basic Books, 2026)

March 27, 2026

Worlds of Islam

James McDougall
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. In Worlds of Islam: A Global History (Basic Books, 2026), James McDougal…