Congratulations @hofrench.bsky.social ! So well deserved!

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

🚨JOB ALERT🚨 We! Are! Hiring! The Department of Africana Studies at Smith College invites applications for a tenure-track position in Black Women’s Studies/Gender Studies at the rank of Assistant Professor, to begin 7/1/26 More info here: apply.interfolio.com/171572 #blackademia #academia #PhDSky

New History Job Posted Today: Associate Professor (tenured) Public History/Associate Director of Slavery North Initiative | University of Massachusetts Amherst

🎓 New article by Jeffrey Ahlman (@jeffahlman.bsky.social) on "W.E.B. Du Bois and the Liberian Question: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Tensions of a Black Republic" www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

My department at Smith College is hiring a one year VAP in Political Theory. Full time (2:3) and benefited position. Specialization is open but particularly interested in candidates in either American Political Thought and/or Comparative Political Theory. Apply here apply.interfolio.com/164854

This may not be as tragic as the devastation of PEPFAR, which has deprived AIDS patients of medications, but the elimination of the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs is a real loss for our country and the world.

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.... New article: "W. E. B. Du Bois and the Liberian Question: Sovereignty, Empire, and the Tensions of a Black Republic"

James Ferguson, a guiding light in the anthropology of southern Africa, has died. His prose and analysis offered a model of clarity and insight. He was only 65. Very very sad.

**Today,** from noon-1pm (PST), UW African Studies hosts Bright Gyamfi @gyamfiphd.bsky.social for his virtual lecture “Embers of Pan-Africanism: Nkrumahist Intellectuals and Decolonization, 1960-1980.” Registration link is below, hope you can make it! Link: jsis.washington.edu/africa/event...

Thank you so much, @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social for giving me the opportunity to discuss THE IDEOLOGICAL SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA! @cornellupress.bsky.social You can listen to it here: newbooksnetwork.com/the-ideologi...

Very excited to share this news. My next book, The Second Emancipation, comes out in August, but if you want to buy it now through Barnes and Noble you can get 25% off today only by using PREORDER 25 at checkout. www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-second...

We’re hiring a tenured historian at UMass-Amherst in the Public Histories of North American Enslavement. Please circulate to anyone you think would be interested careers.umass.edu/amherst/en-u... 🗃️

As we kick off the first week of quarter, I am reminded that I my mental model is *absolutely* directory structure and I have no idea how students now live their entire lives in the chaotic laundry basket that is Google Drive. This article explains it so well: www.theverge.com/22684730/stu...

Proofs Day.

Well, I'm sad we didn't get the full finish feed on that women's NCAA XC championship race. 😬

So excited to share that my book is nearly here. You can find it here tinyurl.com/yu6tkmrt for 40% off with the code 6AF24.

I heard yesterday the sad news of the death of Richard Rathbone, Professor Emeritus of African History at SOAS, London. He was so kind & intellectually generous, such a humane reader, & a hugely-respected historian of 20th-century #Ghana. I recommend his 1993 book published by Yale Uni Press. 👇

Yesterday, I learned that I have been appointed the Gwendolen M. Carter Professor of African Studies at Smith College.

Happy #FreedomDay2024 #SouthAfrica! Read reflections on the #history and #historiography of #SouthAfrica 30 years after the end of #apartheid. #FreedomDay #Democracy OA link: bit.ly/4aQyRrq

Yesterday, the Smith College faculty voted to approve the creation of an African Studies major--something relatively unique for a liberal arts college of Smith's size. The African Studies faculty has spent much of the last 4-5 years working to this moment.

english majors make as much money as anybody else with a college degree, if not more—pass it on

If you don’t think women’s basketball is a top tier collegiate sport, let me tell you that the SEC championship game ended with a bench-clearing brawl that got half of both teams tossed out of the arena. If that’s not the most SEC thing ever, I don’t know what is

Ghana's parliament has passed a hateful anti-queer bill. Simply identifying oneself as LGBTQ+ could lead to a up to a three year prison sentence.

Pushing people to STEM was never about rewarding those seeking education- it was about lowering costs for corporations paying premiums for workers in science fields. Same with the "learn to code". Same with LLM AI's. Corporations don't want to pay workers, and are shaping policy/culture to not do so

In Perspectives on History, read a Long Overdue tribute to diplomatic historian Merze Tate, who died in 1996. 🗃️

This is true of many universities and certainly my own chicagomaroon.com/40486/news/u...

Today is the official release date for my new book Ghana:A Political and Social History.

From The Athletic: Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya broke the marathon world record on Sunday in Chicago, becoming the first athlete to run under 2:01 in an eligible race. nyti.ms/48H8yU6

“Scholars’ working conditions are publishers’ working conditions. If we want to change these conditions, we have to begin by recognizing—and working together to find—our common ground.” As usual @rcolesworthy.bsky.social doesn’t miss. www.publicbooks.org/publishers-a...

Afripolsky Protests in Accra for the second day in a row. Protesters and journalists detained. Future assemblies banned: www.npr.org/2023/09/21/1...

In the September issue of the American Historical Review, you’ll find the launch of the journal’s first sustained effort to bring teaching and pedagogy to its pages. Check out the AHR Syllabus project and get a sneak peek at the issue’s other articles in Perspectives on History!

New Book.