Faculty Member Publishes Essay on West Africa

Akin Ogundiran has published an essay that offers a new interpretation of the origins of cities and states in the West African rainforest. Using the results of new archaeological finds in Nigeria and Ghana especially, he shows not only that cities and kingdoms flourished in the rainforest belt of West Africa during the second half of the first millennium AD but that these urban centers and states were founded on the principles of community building and cosmopolitanism. The paper offers new evidence and interpretation that debunk the “tribal model” of African history. The essay is “Towns and States in Rainforest West Africa,” in Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2013), Peter Mitchell and Paul Lane, eds., pp. 855-869.

Ogundiran is chair of the Africana Studies Department and professor of Africana studies, anthropology and history at UNC Charlotte. He has previously taught in the Department of History at Florida International University, Miami and University of Benin (Nigeria). Trained in Nigeria and the U.S., he received his Ph.D. in Archaeological Studies from Boston University. His current research focuses on the topics of empire, material culture and cultural history in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1830s. He is especially interested in Yoruba cultural history in the Atlantic World. His teaching encompasses African Archaeology, Precolonial African History, African Modernities, Atlantic Slavery and the Middle Passage, and The African Diaspora Cultures. He has conducted research in Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the United States, and has received support for his research from Dumbarton Oaks, Social Science Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation-supported programs, among others.

Ogundiran is recipient of the 2006 University of Texas Africanist Award for Research Excellence. In 2007, he was awarded a Certificate of Special US Congressional Recognition for Excellence in Service. He is a member of the Mu Chapter of Phi Beta Delta (Honor Society for International Scholars).