Africa House: A Home for Africa and African Studies at Columbia
Africa House, an initiative developed and led by IAS Associate Director, Dr. Jinny Prais, is a platform and gathering space that supports student engagement with Africa alongside the classroom. The Africa House is located in the IAS lounge in Knox Hall, but moves around the city in a variety of ways through field trips, conversations, cultural activities, and festivals. It serves as the organizing framework for a vibrant and dynamic student presence in African Studies at Columbia University.
The name draws from the West African Students’ Union’s Africa House in interwar London—a space where students gathered, published, and engaged Africa from within the imperial metropole.
Within the Africa House framework, a set of signature programs has taken shape: Tea and Conversation, Africa House Cinema, Field Trips, and the Playlist of the Week, a student-curated series exploring African music across regions and genres. Together, these programs create a regular rhythm of engagement and serve as a point of connection for undergraduate and graduate students across the University.
This term, Africa House hosted a conversation with Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine. The event drew a packed room of students and more than 51,000 livestream views, demonstrating the strong demand for spaces where students can engage contemporary African issues collectively.
Africa House Field Trips have included guided visits to exhibitions such as Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at MoMA, Visions of Sudan at The Africa Center, and The Gay Harlem Renaissance at the New York Historical Society. In May, more than 20 Columbia students attended screenings at the New York African Film Festival at Film at Lincoln Center. The week included films such as Promised Sky, The Eyes of Ghana, Résidence surveillée, So Long a Letter, and several short films, many followed by filmmaker Q&As. The field trips offered students a lively way to engage African cinema beyond the classroom.
Africa House provides the necessary infrastructure and platform for collaboration. One recent example is the Ethio-jazz celebration and coffee ceremony in Sakura Park, a student-driven collaborative program featuring live music, a traditional coffee ceremony, and Ethiopian food. Under the student leadership of Michael Negussie and the Columbia University Ethiopian and Eritrean Students Association (ESSA), the event grew to include partnerships with Ethiopian and Eritrean student groups at NYU and Princeton and drew support from multiple units across Columbia, including the Dean of Humanities, Center for Jazz Studies, MESAAS, AAADS. With over 300 people in attendance from across Columbia and Harlem, this type of programming reflects the broader aim of Africa House: to create space for innovative student-driven collaboration within and beyond the University.
This term, Africa House joined with the African Students Association (ASA) to host an archival workshop as part of Africa Week and Afropolitan 2026. The workshop, led by Dr. Prais, introduced students to materials from the 1970s through the 1990s, tracing the institutional history of African Studies at Columbia and its intersections with Pan-Africanism and African American Studies. The discussion extended to the broader history of African Studies in New York, including Harlem and earlier generations of African and Black students whose presence helped shape the field.
The work of Africa House is supported and extended through a set of connected initiatives. Courses in African Studies and Instagram (@ias.columbia) serves as critical infrastructure for sharing student activity and connecting students to Africa-related programming across New York City. The blog, Africa in the World, links scholarship, teaching, and student engagement, including archival workshops developed in collaboration with student groups.
Africa House strengthens African Studies at Columbia by creating continuity across programs, supporting student belonging, and fostering relationships that extend beyond individual courses or events. It provides a space where Africa is a visible and everyday presence in the life of the University.
Click on links to explore photos and videos of recent Africa House activities and follow us on Instagram.
Contact Africa House
Africa House is available for use by Columbia students and student organizations for meetings and gatherings.
To learn more about Africa House events and opportunities, contact the Associate Director, Dr. Jinny Prais, at [email protected]. Follow Africa House events and activities on Instagram.