Director
Abosede George | [email protected]
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1:15 PM — 3:00 PM in Knox Hall, Suite 201
Abosede George is a historian of modern Africa based at Barnard College and Columbia University. Her areas of specialization include West African history, most specifically the History of Lagos, the history of Youth and Childhood, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Urban History, and Migration History. Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, was published by Ohio University Press. It received the Aidoo-Snyder book prize in 2015 from the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Journal of West African History, Meridians, Women's Studies Quarterly, Scholar and Feminist Online, Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the American Historical Review, the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth, The Washington Post, and the Bloomsbury press series, A Cultural History of Youth among others. Her current research examines how migrant diasporic and refugee communities reshaped notions of citizenship and belonging in 19th century Lagos.
Associate Director
Jinny Prais | [email protected]
Jinny Prais is the Associate Director of IAS and Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She is the advisor for the IAS Graduate Certificate in African Studies and the SIPA Africa Specialisation. She teaches the graduate seminar, "Citizenship and Social Movements in Africa," at SIPA and teaches undergraduate courses within the department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS).
She earned her doctorate in History and Women’s Studies from the University of Michigan. Her areas of teaching and research include citizenship and social movements; African cities and urban cultures; African diaspora and imperial networks; and colonial and gender identity formation in twentieth-century West Africa. Her publications include: “‘Casting the Badge of Inferiority Beneath Black Peoples’ Feet’: Archiving and Reading the African Past, Present and Future in World History” (with Mamadou Diouf), in Global Intellectual History, Andrew Sartori and Samuel Moyn, Eds. (Columbia University Press, 2013); "Representing an African City and Urban Elite: The Nightclubs, Dance Halls, and Red Light District of Interwar Accra," in The Arts of Citizenship in Africa Cities, Rosalind Fredericks and Mamadou Diouf, Eds. (Palgrave, 2015).
African Language Coordinator
Mariame Sy | [email protected]
Mariame Sy is the Coordinator of the African Language Program and a Lecturer in Wolof and Pulaar in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS). She came to Columbia University in Fall 2005 from the Department of Linguistics at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she is finishing a Ph.D. in Linguistics. Her research interests include the morpho-phonology and syntax of West-Atlantic languages such as Wolof and Pulaar, and first and second language acquisition.
African Studies Librarian
Yuusuf Caruso | [email protected]
Yuusuf S. Caruso is the African Studies Librarian at Columbia (since 1993). He earned his doctorate in History (specialization in East Africa) from Columbia University. He is in charge of everything from and about Africa in the Libraries and offers reference consultations and class instruction. For further information on the collection or to arrange an appointment, please contact Dr. Caruso at the email above.