The African Humanities Series initiative became a catalyst for producing new knowledge by emerging scholars. The program provided a subvention to publish fellows’ monographs that meet international standards. In 2010, the AHP selection committee recommended the launch of “a landmark series in the African humanities” with a view to publishing fellows’ outputs that can have practical value in teaching and research while at the same time showcasing the best in African humanities research to the international scholarly community. After a thorough selection process and vetting to ensure originality and quality of research, selected manuscripts received support for publication, including developmental editing and rigorous peer review.

To date, twenty-two books with topics in African histories, languages, literatures, and cultures have been published in the series. The current Series Editor is Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University, South Africa. With the sun-setting of the AHP, the Series will be maintained by the African Humanities Association (AHA).

AHP Publications

African Personhood and Applied Ethics

Motsamai Molefe

Bettering Their Foods: Peasant Production, Nutrition and the State in Malawi, 1859-2005

Bryson G. Nkhoma

Boxing Is No Cakewalk! Azumah ‘Ring Professor’ Nelson in the Social History of Ghanaian Boxing

De-Valera NYM Botchway

Beyond Monuments: The Politics and Poetics of Memory in Post-War Northern Uganda

Laury L. Ocen

Claude E. Ake – The Making of an Organic Intellectual

Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe

Consensus as Democracy in Africa

Bernard Matolino

Gender Terrains in African Cinema

Dominica Dipio

Hollywood and Africa – Recycling the ‘Dark Continent’ Myth, 1908-2020

Okaka Opio Dokotum

Indigenous Shona Philosophy: Reconstructive Insights

Pascah Mungwini

Language and the Construction of Multiple Identities in the Nigerian Novel

Romanus Aboh

Men Across Time: Contesting Masculinities in Ghanaian Fiction and Film

Theresah Patrine Ennin

Music and Urban Youth Identities: A Study of Ghetto Youth in Contemporary Culture and Politics in Zimbabwe

Doreen Rumbidzai Tivenga

Nation, Power and Dissidence in Third Generation Nigerian Poetry in English

Sule E. Egya

Parading Respectability: The Cultural and Moral Aesthetics of the Christmas Bands Movement in the Western Cape, South Africa

Sylvia Bruinders

Politics, Profits and Protection: Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry Since 1947

Sibanengi Ncube

Queer Bodies in African Films

Gibson Ncube

The Anglophone Literary-Linguistic Continuum: English and Indigenous Languages in African Literary Discourse

Michael Andindilile

Unshared Identity: Posthumous Paternity in a Contemporary Yoruba Community

Babajide Ololajulo

What the Forest Told Me: Yoruba Hunter, Culture and Narrative Performance

Ayo Adeduntan

White Narratives: The Depiction of Post-2000 Land Invasions in Zimbabwe

Irikidzayi Manase

Dina Ligaga

Yabbing and Wording: The Artistry of Nigerian Stand-Up Comedy

Izuu Nwankwo

Scholar Development
AHP provided Fellows with diverse opportunities to network outside their primary institutions and supported the creation and circulation of knowledge.
African humanities centers and institutes for advanced study affiliated with AHP provided space and resources for Fellows to embark on their research outside their home countries.
Weeklong, intensive retreats for Fellows who completed their fellowship tenures to discuss manuscripts with AHP mentors and other fellows.
Video series chronicling stories of African scholars engaged in the reinvigoration of the humanities on the continent.
Subvention, developmental editing, and peer review to publish fellows’ monographs in a landmark book series covering topics in African histories, languages, literatures, and cultures.
An annual meeting for knowledge sharing, networking, and assessment of humanities scholarship in Africa among AHP Alumni, fellows, assessors, mentors, advisers, and interested scholars.
Partnership with the African Studies Association (ASA) in the United States to bring selected AHP Fellows to the ASA Annual Meeting as ASA Presidential Fellows.