African Humanities Voices

African Humanities Voices is a video series chronicling stories of African scholars engaged in the reinvigoration of the humanities on the continent.

African cultures are renowned for communication through painting, sculpture, architecture, textiles and the decorative arts, linguistic innovation, and storytelling. The videos feature African scholars who have broken boundaries in research and teaching in ways that profoundly impact their communities.

African Humanities Voices is produced by the Carnegie/ACLS African Humanities Program (AHP). Each video is written and produced by corresponding AHP teams in Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Authorship (South Africa)

In this video, Gibson Ncube F’15 talks about his journey to becoming an author through the African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Fellowship. Ncube underscores the AHP fellowship’s crucial role in publishing his first monograph, supported by the program’s manuscript development workshop, mentoring, and the African Humanities Series, which provided a vital avenue for publishing two of his books.

Breaking Barriers (Ghana)

This video highlights the vital role AHP played in supporting women’s education and career advancement in Ghana. It examines the significance of AHP in providing funding that otherwise wouldn’t have been available to scholars, especially women, thus ensuring the acceleration of these scholars into leadership positions. Hasiyatu Abubakari F’20 details her AHP journey and growth as a scholar who now mentors other women in her discipline to succeed.

Ethnomusicology (Tanzania)

This video discusses the study of African music through methods from Ethnomusicology. Imani Sanga F’08 of the University of Dar es Salam, takes the audience through his journey into music and delves into understanding Tanzanian music through the lens of culture. He shows how AHP helped to fill the gap in funding for ethnomusicology research. The fellowship enabled many scholars in this field to research, publish, and build a reputation in the discipline.

Mentorship (South Africa)

This video from South Africa showcases the impact of AHP mentorship opportunities among African scholars. Emeritus Associate Professor Lynette Steenveld, the editor-in-chief of the African Literary Journal, Carli Coetzee, and Laury Ocen F’18, F’16 from Makerere University discuss the importance of mentoring to encourage, engage, and assist junior scholars in converting a dissertation into a published monograph.

Transient Minorities (Uganda)

In this video, four AHP Fellows share their experience as scholars from a minority ethnicity and how living in the margins has meaningfully influenced their scholarship on minority studies. Danson Kahyana F’14, Sauda Namyalo F’10, Sr. Dominica Dipio F’08, and Fr. Cornelius Wambi F’09 highlight the influence of their upbringing, education, religion, and socio-cultural contexts on their scholarship. They discuss the ways AHP was instrumental in supporting them in pursuing their unique research.

Vanguards of Our Time (Ghana)

This video tells the stories of the African Humanities Program from its inception and how crucial it has been in funding humanities research that hardly gets funding support. It chronicles how that support helped some women scholars to shatter the glass ceiling at the University of Ghana. The narrative takes a closer look at the ascendance of Nana Aba Appiah Amfo F’08 to the position of Vice Chancellor and sterling leadership. Professor Amfo discusses her AHP journey and growth from being a fellow to a mentor to becoming the inaugural President of the African Humanities Association.

Explore More Videos in the Series

Full Playlist

Tanzania

Ghana

Uganda

South Africa

Scholar Development

AHP provided Fellows with diverse opportunities to network outside their primary institutions and supported the creation and circulation of knowledge.

Residencies

African humanities centers and institutes for advanced study affiliated with AHP provided space and resources for Fellows to embark on their research outside their home countries.

Manuscript Development Workshops

Weeklong, intensive retreats for Fellows who completed their fellowship tenures to discuss manuscripts with AHP mentors and other fellows.

African Humanities Voices

Video series chronicling stories of African scholars engaged in the reinvigoration of the humanities on the continent.

African Humanities Series

Subvention, developmental editing, and peer review to publish fellows’ monographs in a landmark book series covering topics in African histories, languages, literatures, and cultures.

Regional Assemblies

An annual meeting for knowledge sharing, networking, and assessment of humanities scholarship in Africa among AHP Alumni, fellows, assessors, mentors, advisers, and interested scholars.

African Studies Association

Partnership with the African Studies Association (ASA) in the United States to bring selected AHP Fellows to the ASA Annual Meeting as ASA Presidential Fellows.