African History at UW-Madison

Wisconsin has long been one of the leading African history programs in the world.  The History Department as a whole is ranked among the top ten in the country, and the African Studies Program  is one of the country’s few National Resource Centers.  The University's Library resources, under the direction of Emilie Songolo, are also among the best in the country.  Wisconsin has now trained over one- hundred African historians, including many of the leading figures in the field along with a host of rising younger scholars and an unprecedented number of winners of the Herskovits Prize for the best book in African Studies.

Our current faculty consists of Florence Bernault in modern, Francophone, Central, and West African history; James Sweet in African Diaspora history; Neil Kodesh in Pre-colonial, Eastern, and Southern African history; Michael Chamberlain in North Africa and the Middle East; Jan Vansina, emeritus, in Central Africa; and Thomas Spear, emeritus, in Eastern Africa.

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