Harvard University: Repatriating African Knowledge ...,1998

"Repatriating African Knowledge,

Acknowledging African Perspectives."

The Harvard African Humanities Institute is a joint project of the Harvard Committee on African Studies and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research. With the generous assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, it brings scholars based in institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa to Harvard for one or two semesters during the academic year. Applications for appointment as visiting fellows are invited from African-based scholars in the fields of anthropology, art, history, demography, literary studies, music, philosophy and political economy.

The Humanities Institute is co-directed by K. Anthony Appiah and Robert Bates and has two guiding aims.The first is to create a cross-disciplinary community of scholarsconscious of how various disciplines have been informed by scholarship about Africa and on how Africanist knowledge has been shaped by different institutional locations in Africa and in North America. The second is to advance the reformulation of research agendas through interaction between scholars based in the United States and scholars working in a variety of African institutions.

We recognize the substantial diversity of perspectives within Africa and the United States, as well as those differences in outlook that flow from the contrasts between social and material conditions in American and African research institutions.We are profoundly aware, for example, that American race relations continue to structure the production of Africanist knowledge in the United States.It is a central assumption of the Institute that we need to explore how research agendas are shaped by many concerns, such as race relations, development or nation building, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Applicants are requested to submit a proposal of research and writing for the period of their fellowship at Harvard which addresses the central aims of the Humanities Institute.While at Harvard they will participate in an ongoing Humanities Institute Faculty Seminar, the Harvard Africa Seminar and the DuBois Institute Colloquium Series.They will present a paper which will be published electronically at the Committee on African Studies Web site <http://icg.harvard.edu/~africa>.

Eligilibility: Scholars based in Sub-Saharan African institutions Application Deadline: January 15, 1998 Contact: Dr. Rita Breen, Committee on African Studies, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room 202, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138.PH: (617) 495-5265.FAX: (617) 496-5183.

Email: cafrica@fas.harvard.edu

Dr. Rita M. Breen PHONE: (617) 495-5265

Executive Officer FAX: (617) 496-5183

Committee on African Studies E-MAIL: rbreen@fas.harvard.edu

Harvard University URL: http://icg.harvard.edu/~africa

1737 Cambridge St. Room 202

Cambridge, MA 02138