African Studies Program

On November 22, former associate director of the IU African Studies Program, Maria Grosz-Ngaté, delivered the 2019 ASA Presidential Lecture “Knowledge and Power: Perspectives on the Production and Decolonization of African/ist Knowledges” at the annual African Studies Association meeting in Boston. With this topic, Grosz-Ngaté builds upon issues brought to the fore by Pearl Robinson in her 2007 ASA Presidential Lecture, “Ralph Bunch and African Studies: Reflections on the Politics of Knowledge,” and most recently by Jean Allman’s 2018 address, “Herskovits Must Fall?: Meditations on Whiteness, African Studies, and the Unfinished Business of 1968 (Atlanta).” We thank her and the ASA board for their continued efforts toward greater equity and inclusion in African Studies, and for their exposure of, and efforts in ending, institutional racism.