"Writing isn’t just the production of sentences – it’s the training of endurance by way of sustained attention. It’s a way of learning what one thinks by attempting to say it." www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Do you all understand what we've lost, culturally, to climate change?

Nearly 6 billion people live in the 101 countries that a study has identified as confronting a net decline in water supply — signaling enormous challenges for food production and a heightening risk of conflict and instability. (Published July 2025)

Even as politicians are busy chasing oil and denying climate change, reality is this: ‘A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds www.theguardian.com/environment/...

On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2026, we are reposting this amazing interview with Senegalese scholar-activist Rama Salla Dieng about her book African Feminism: A Decolonial History (2021). buff.ly/MRE0oCo

Call for co-panelists at ASA 2026!: africanstudies.org/annual-meeti...

These are “low enrollment” majors but the classes are regularly at capacity. They changed the funding structure a few years ago here, switching the allocation from course enrollments to majors then blamed these departments for a structural, top-down change. This is entirely a political choice.

Emotional moment: "Celebrations as flight carries dozens of passengers from Port Sudan to Sudanese capital." www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

"The covert base offers new evidence of how the Sudanese conflict is morphing into a theater for high-tech warfare, driven by foreign interests." www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/w...

😢 UNC cuts all six area studies research centers, effective 2026 dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

#WorldAIDSDay this year is a grim one Stories of the devastating impact of US, British and wider European aid cuts on the fight against HIV – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – continue to mount as 2025 comes to an end… www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Thank you!

Good to see this book review forum up on @dialogueshg.bsky.social with reviews by @cgastrow.bsky.social @goodfellowtom.bsky.social, David Mwambari and Brittany Meche, and my response. Thanks to all!

Zohran Mamdani’s last name reflects centuries of intercontinental trade, migration and cultural exchange theconversation.com/zohran-mamda...

In a win for the arts and universal basic income, Ireland plans to make permanent a $1,500-a-month pilot program for artists, citing benefits to creativity, mental health, and financial stability.

Raila Amolo Odinga: kenopalo.substack.com/p/raila-amol...

Breaking News: Raila Odinga, a former prime minister and a towering figure of Kenyan politics, died at 80. Read more: nyti.ms/42D5BT9

Well done! An important book.

New Online 1st Author Response “Parsing the Rwandan urban question: Toward ‘minor histories’ of urban space” by Shakirah Hudani doi.org/10.1177/2043...

Honoring Zijie Yan alumni.unc.edu/news/memoria...

Delighted to see this essay about The Second Emancipation in the WSJ. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Very honored that 'Master Plans and Minor Acts' is one of three finalists for the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award (Metropolis). Congratulations to @colinmcfarlane.bsky.social and Stephanie Wakefield and many thanks to the judging panel! www.metropolis.org/news/meet-fi...

Excited that my book is long listed for the 2025 Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award www.metropolis.org/news/10-book...

We Built This City is a limited series of photo essays by The Continent on African cities. This week, we are in Lagos with Victor Adewale.

Beautifully wrought, long radio feature seeing the devastation of Khartoum through the destruction of a legenday hotel. (Reminds me of lodging amid ruins in Port-aux-Princes, Brazzaville, Kisangani, Monrovia, Kampala, etc., etc. www.npr.org/2025/06/15/n...

I’m one of 20 assistant professors in A&S at UNC who has had their tenure decision deferred. I was planning to spend my summer editing my third book. Now? 🤷🏻‍♀️ www.wral.com/video/unc-fa...

New Online 1st Book Review “Complicating the master plan” by Claudia Gastrow doi.org/10.1177/2043...

New article in @societyandspace.bsky.social "Contentious Plots: Staking durable claims to ethnic belonging in Nairobi": journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Renowned Human Rights Lawyer Pheroze Nowrojee Dies

Congratulations to Shakirah E. Hudani on her book Master Plans and Minor Acts winning the ISA Peace Studies Section, Best Global South Scholar Book Award and being shortlisted for the ISA Global Development Studies Book Award. Learn more here: bit.ly/UCPEXAAG. #AAG2025

Check out my new review essay "Building the City from Below: Toward a Citizen-Centered City-Making": www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It strikes me that the US is experiencing its own round of SAPs, and there lessons to be learnt from how SAPs devastated African countries.

#Lesotho is one of 8 countries worldwide (6 in #Africa) that could soon run out of drugs used to treat those with #HIV because of #USAID destruction: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Looking forward to this book forum organized by the Duke Africa Initiative on 26 Mar with @cgastrow.bsky.social and @shakirahh.bsky.social

New Online 1st Book Review “Kavukire? What place do the living and the dead occupy in contemporary Rwanda” by David Mwambari doi.org/10.1177/2043...

With global health and development in a state of crisis, how do we reimagine global health? Please join us online for this genuinely diverse & inclusive course! June 9 - 13, 2025 www.mcgill.ca/summerinstit...

Honored and thankful to be awarded the 2025 ISA Peace section Best Global South Scholar Book Award. @isanet.bsky.social www.isanet.org/News/ID/6582...

Absolutely devastated by this news. Jim was one of my first anthropology teachers at Stanford. In his class on the history of anthropological thought, he taught me how to read carefully, insisting that I take the time to understand someone's argument in context before I reach for the easy critique.

"What openings does spacetime provide that the maritime, perhaps, cannot as readily support?" — from our latest issue, read Petal Samuel's "Black Gravity, or a Hidden History of Empire" here: read.dukeupress.edu/differences/...