African Humanities Project

The African Humanities Project

Reimagining the Humanities from Africa.

The African Humanities Project is a Columbia Alliance–funded international collaboration that reimagines the humanities from Africa as a foundational site of intellectual inquiry and pedagogical renewal. Developed in partnership with Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique (UM6P) in Morocco, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and partner scholars at Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Senegal, the project brings together a growing network of scholars and institutions committed to reshaping humanities education through African perspectives.

At its core, the project challenges inherited disciplinary frameworks by centering African intellectual traditions, vernacular knowledge systems, and practices of translation and conceptual innovation. It asks: What new categories of thought—ethical, aesthetic, political—can emerge from African texts, objects, and historical experience?

Programmatic Focus

The initiative advances four core goals:

Reframe the Humanities from an African Perspective

Engage African thinkers and traditions as generative sources for global intellectual renewal.

Design and Share Curriculum

Develop adaptable curricular frameworks for teaching African humanities across institutions. Shared course prototypes and open-access teaching materials will support broader dissemination.

Foster Pedagogical Experimentation

Build collaborative workshop formats that support curriculum formation, object-based inquiry, and collective reflection on teaching methods and conceptual structure.

Build Infrastructure

Strengthen cross-regional scholarly exchange, institutional partnership, and long-term platforms for African-centered humanistic inquiry.

Recent and Upcoming Milestones:

  • December 2024: The project launched with a foundational planning workshop at UM6P in Ben Guerir, Morocco, bringing together faculty from Columbia, UM6P, and Paris 1 to establish the project’s intellectual priorities and collaborative structure.
  • December 2025: A major convening at UM6P expanded the project’s pedagogical focus through hands-on curriculum experimentation. Participants worked collectively with texts, objects, and practices drawn from African contexts to develop early teaching prototypes and shared methodological approaches.
  • December 2026: The final workshop of the current Alliance-funded cycle will take place at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. This meeting will refine the project’s central intellectual framework, strengthen institutional ties on the African continent, and continue curriculum development in collaboration with scholars from Senegal and Nigeria.
  • June 2027: The project’s next phase will culminate in a weeklong curriculum-building retreat on the African continent. The retreat will consolidate nearly a decade of collaborative work by producing shared curricular prototypes and a flexible course framework provisionally titled African Humanities through Objects, designed for adaptation and piloting across partner institutions.

Together, these activities form a coherent progression—from conceptual inquiry, to pedagogical experimentation, to durable curricular outcomes and a future globally accessible teaching platform.

Support and Engagement:

The African Humanities Project has received generous seed funding from the Columbia Alliance and UM6P and is actively cultivating partnerships with individuals and foundations committed to curriculum innovation and African intellectual leadership.

For more information, please contact:  Dr. Jinny Prais | [email protected]