FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2026
Contact: Alix Saba, Executive Director, asaed@africanstudies.org
PDF Press Release for Distribution: HERE
African Studies Association Announces the 2026 18th-Century Africa Publication Fellows
PISCATAWAY, New Jersey— The African Studies Association (ASA) and American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS) are thrilled to welcome their second cohort of ten joint 18th-Century Africa Publication Fellows in 2026. Thanks to generous funding from the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), ASECS and ASA have jointly designed a one-year fellowship to engage early career scholars often underrepresented in their fields. Ten fellows have been selected to participate in the second fellowship cohort. Programming kicked off in mid-April with a meet-and-greet at the 2026 ASECS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia and will continue with online meetings, culminating in a publishing workshops to improve scholarly journal publication outcomes at the ASA Annual Meeting in New Orleans.
The 2026 Eighteenth-Century Africa Publication Fellows Include:
Nura Abubakar, Ohio University, “Islamic Authority and Political Legitimacy: Muhammad al-Kanemi and the Borno–Sokoto Correspondence”
Oyinade Adekunle, McMaster University, “Legal Plurality and Social Order in 18th Century Nigeria”
Emmanuel Kalu Amah, University of Tulsa, “Isseke Speaks: Igbo Memory and the Question of Universality in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano”
Saiba Bayo, Pompeu Fabra University, “The Immaculate Jester: Humor and Blackness in Eighteenth-Century Spain through Jesús Cosano’s Los Invisibles”
Kamai Freire, Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar / Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, “Musical Warfare in the Haitian Revolution: the spiritual fabric of “fran ginen” against the world of disenchantment”
Wanda Harris, University of California, Los Angeles, “Jose Campeche Y Jordan Mulatto, Puertorican Artist; 18th Century Colonial Puerto Rico through the Lens of a Mulatto Artist”
Imani Irving-Perez, City University of New York, “Between Violation and Volition: Africana Feminist Readings of Women’s Sexuality in the 18th- Century Black Atlantic”
Keyonna White, Indiana University, “Biological Memory and the Archive of Oppression: Epigenetic Inheritance and the Eighteenth-Century Roots of African Diasporic Health Harm”
Dominique Winters, George Mason University, “Back-to-Africa Revisited: From Black Resistance to Heritage Tourism”
Umar Yandaki, Northwestern University, “Death in Katsina: Analyzing An Eighteenth-Century Account of the First Recorded Christian Mission in a Hausa City”
About the ASA
Established in 1957, the African Studies Association is the flagship membership organization devoted to enhancing the exchange of information about Africa. The ASA is based in the United States and aims to cultivate a better understanding of the continent, by providing access to path-breaking research and facilitating interdisciplinary exchanges with African scholars and institutions. The ASA Annual Meeting fosters global networks by convening people with scholarly and other interests in Africa, and ultimately broadens professional opportunities in the field. The organization publishes two leading journals on Africa, African Studies Review and History in Africa and promotes an informed understanding of Africa to educational institutions, the public, businesses, media, and other interested communities.
