About Us

The Harvard University Committee on African Studies is an interdisciplinary group of scholars appointed to coordinate teaching and research and advance knowledge and understanding of Africa within Harvard. Established in 1969, its members are drawn from faculty across the University. Committee members are listed below.

Contact Information
The Committee office is located at 1730 Cambridge Street, Room 403,
CGIS South Building, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Phone: (617) 495-5265; Fax: (617) 496-5183 cafrica@fas.harvard.edu

Committee on African Studies activities include the following:

Harvard Africa Seminar and other Africa-related events

Since 1976, the Committee has sponsored the Harvard Africa Seminar to explore issues of importance to Africa or scholarship on Africa. The Seminar is multi-disciplinary, open to all members of the community. The Committee's annual Distinguished African Studies Lecture brings prominent leaders to Harvard to provide an African perspective  on contemporary African issues. The Committee also sponsors lectures, workshops, film showings, performances and social gatherings. For more information visit our events calendar.

Research

The Committee is sponsoring an interfaculty research project funded by the Provost. Known as the Africa Initiative, this multi-disciplinary project has five working groups: "African Expressive Culture"; "Power, Governance and Authority"; "Health, Healing and Ritual Practice"; "Human Capital and Economic Growth"; and "Realms of Knowledge, Memory, and Contestation."

Travel Grants

The Committee awards grants to Harvard students for travel to Africa to assist juniors with senior honors thesis research and graduate students doing dissertation research on Sub-Saharan Africa. The committee also awards grants for student interships in Africa and advanced study of African languages. All grants are for research in the social sciences or humanities and are awarded in a merit competition at the end of February of each year.

Harvard African Studies Listserve

Each week Dr. Rita Breen, the Committee's Executive Officer, emails the details of Harvard events on Africa to hundreds of subscribers to this listserv. These events may be sponsored by any of Harvard's schools or programs.

Committee Members

Jacob Olupona, Professor of African and African American Studies (FAS), Professor of African Religious Traditions (Divinity School); Chair, Committee on African Studies.

Rawi Abdelal, Professor of Business Administration (Business School)

Leila N. Ahmed, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity (Divinity School)

Emmanuel K. Akyeampong, Harvard College Professor and Professor of History and of African and African American Studies

Ali Asani, Professor of the Practice of Indo-Muslim Languages and Cultures

Robert H. Bates, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies

Suzanne Blier, Allen Whitehill Clowes Professor of Fine Arts and Professor of African and African American Studies

Rita M. Breen, Executive Officer for the Committee on African Studies; Executive Director, Harvard South African Fellowship

Felton J. Earls, Professor of Social Medicine and Professor of Human Behavior and Development in the School of Public Health and Child Psychiatry (Medical School)

Caroline M. Elkins, Hugh K. Foster Associate Professor of African Studies

Majid Ezzati, Associate Professor of International Health (Public Health)

Wafaie W. Fawzi, Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology (Public Health)

Deborah D. Foster, Senior Lecturer on Folklore and Mythology; Head Tutor & Director of Undergraduate Studies

Duana Fullwiley, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Flecher, Jr. University Professor; Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African & African American Studies.

Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Victor S. Thomas Professor of History and of African and African American Studies (ex officio)

Allan G. Hill, Andelot Professor of Demography (Public Health)

Nahomi Ichino, Assistant Professor of Government

Francis Abiola Irele, Professor of African and African American Studies and of Romance Languages and Literatures

Biodun Jeyifo, Professor of African and African American Studies

Matthew Jukes, Assistant Professor (Education School)

Calestous Juma, Professor of the Practice of International Development (Kennedy School)

Michael R. Kremer, Gates Professor of Developing Societies

Harry S. Martin III, Professor of Law and Henry N. Ess III Librarian

J. Lorand Matory, Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies

Jens Meierhenrich, Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies

Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, Supported by the Time Warner Endowment

John M. Mugane, Professor of the Practice of African Languages and Cultures and Director of the African Languages program

Matthias Schüendeln, Assistant Professor of Economics and of Social Studies

Kay Kaufman Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of African and African American Studies

Lucie White, Lewis A. Horvitz Professor of Law

Richard K. Wolf, Professor of Music