African Studies Reading Room
607 Butler Library

• About the Collection
  
  This special non-circulating collection on African history and the humanities is located on the 6th floor of Butler Library, opposite the elevators on the east side of the building. Since its grand opening in December 2003, the African Studies Reading Room collection has continued to grow slowly and will eventually reach full capacity at 6,200 volumes.
  
  The advanced or novice scholar is invited to browse the books and to be immersed in a quiet and intellectually inspiring context. Announcements about library resources, literary and other major current events --local and international-- are posted on a regular basis in the room. On the shelves, one can find an array of selected African studies reference titles standing alongside hundreds of great works of African literature, collected historical documents from Africa, classic ethnographies and travellers' accounts, written transcriptions of Africa's oral heritage --history, epic poetry, folktales, songs, and proverbs-- and major contributions in the interpretation of Africa's past and present and of the African diasporas' engagement with the continent.
  
  Many of the titles selected are winners of prizes such as the Melville J. Herskovits Award for the Best Book on Africa awarded every year by the African Studies Association of the United States; Africa's 100 Best Books of the 20th Century issued in 2002; The Noma Prize for Publishing in Africa ; as well as The Nobel Prize for Literature and The Man Booker Prize.
  
  The collection includes a representative sample of Africa's literature and history written in African languages, such as Hausa, Igbo, Bamanan, Mandinka, Pulaar/Fulfulde, Swahili, Wolof, Yoruba, and Zulu ; with the corresponding African language/English dictionaries. There are also some works in Arabic, but most are in English, French, or Portuguese, and a few in German.
  
  Also on offer are the Annual Papers of the African Literature Association and other Africana conference proceedings, seminal works on African art, music, and film --including publications from the Festival Panafricain du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou (FESPACO), as well as back issues of some of the most important humanities journals published in Africa or by Africans during the twentieth century, such as Bulletin de l'Institut d'Afrique Noire (Dakar), Transition (Kampala), Odu (Ibadan), Black Orpheus (Ibadan), and Présence africaine (Paris). In addition, you will
  find the back issues of key African studies journals published in North America and the UK, including African Affairs, African Studies Review,
  Canadian Journal of African Studies, Journal of African History, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Journal of Southern African Studies.
  
  
• A Sample List from 2005-2009:
  
  -- Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a yellow sun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.
  
  -- Afolabi, Segun. Goodbye Lucille. London: Vintage Books, 2008.
  
  -- African gender studies: a reader. Edited by Oyèrónké Oyewùmí. New York: Palgrave, 2005.
  
  -- Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience. Edited by Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  5 vols. Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
  
  --Afro-Atlantic dialogues: anthropology in the diaspora. Edited by Kevin A. Yelvington. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press; Oxford: James Currey, 2006.
  
  -- Alagoa, Ebiegberi Joe. Festac remembered: cultural intolerance in the Nigerian Nation. Lagos [Nigeria]: Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation, 2007.
  
  -- Amadou Hampâté Bâ, homme de science et de sagesse: mélanges pour le centième anniversaire de la naissance d'Hampaté Bâ. Sous la direction de Amadou Touré et Ntji Idriss Mariko. Paris: Karthala; Bamako: Nouvelles éditions maliennes, c2005.
  
  -- Archaeology of Atlantic Africa and the African diaspora. Edited by Akinwumi Ogundiran and Toyin Falola. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c2007.
  
  -- Arnold, Guy. Historical dictionary of civil wars in Africa. 2nd ed. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008.
  
  -- Bereket H. Selassie. The crown and the pen: the memoirs of a lawyer turned rebel. Trenton, NJ: The Red Sea Press, Inc., c2007.
  
  -- Beti, Mongo. Africains si vous parliez. Paris: Homnisphères, c2005.
  
  -- Cartooning in Africa. Edited by John A. Lent. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, c2009.
  
  -- Chinodya, Shimmer. Strife. Harare: Weaver Press, 2006.
  
  -- A companion to African philosophy. Edited by Kwesi Wiredu et al. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004.
  
  -- Currey, James. Africa writes back: the African writers series & the launch of African literature. Oxford: James Currey; Johannesburg: Wits University Press ; Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2008.
  
  -- Daly, M.W. and Jane R. Hogan. Images of empire: photographic sources for the British in the Sudan. Boston: Brill, 2005.
  
  -- Danish sources for the history of Ghana, 1657-1754. Edited by Ole Justesen; translated by J. Manley. 2 vols. Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, 2005.
  
  -- Datas e documentos de história da FRELIMO: de 1960 a 1975--ano da independência de Moçambique. Edited by Armando Pedro Muiuane Jr. Maputo: CIEDIMA, SARL, 2006.
  
  -- Diagne, Mamoussé. Critique de la raison orale: les pratiques discursives en Afrique noire. Paris: Karthala; Niamey: Centre d'études linguistiques et historiques par tradition orale; Dakar: Institut fondamental d'Afrique noire, 2005.
  
  -- Diagne, Souleymane Bachir. Léopold Sédar Senghor: l'art africain comme philosophie. Paris: Riveneuve éditions, c2007.
  
  -- Diouf, Sylviane A. Dreams of Africa in Alabama: the slave ship Clotilda and the story of the last Africans brought to America. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
  
  -- Doortmont, Michel R. The pen-pictures of modern Africans and African celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: a collective biography of elite society in the Gold Coast Colony. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2005.
  
  -- Encyclopedia of African history. Edited by Kevin Shillington. 3 vols.
  New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005.
  
  -- Encyclopedia of African literature. Edited by Simon Gikandi. London;
  New York: Routledge, 2003.
  
  -- Gaines, Kevin Kelly. American Africans in Ghana: Black expatriates and the civil rights era. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c2006.
  
  -- Getahun, Solomon Addis. The history of Ethiopian immigrants and refugees in America, 1900-2000: patterns of migration, survival, and adjustment. New York: LFB Scholarly Pub. LLC, 2007.
  
  -- Gikandi, Simon and Evan Mwangi. The Columbia guide to East African literature in English since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, c2007.
  
  -- Gilroy, Paul. Black Britain : a photographic history. London: Saqi in association with GettyImages, 2007.
  
  -- Groundings: Walter Rodney commemoration: 25 years after assassination, Guyana, June 2005. Programme. [S.l.: Walter Rodney 25th Anniversary Commemoration Committee, 2005]
  
  -- Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Slavery and African ethnicities in the Americas: restoring the links. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, c2005.
  
  -- Heywood, Linda M. and John K. Thornton. Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
  
  -- History of the Urhobo people of Niger Delta. Edited by Peter P. Ekeh. Buffalo, N.Y.: Urhobo Historical Society, 2007.
  
  -- Ilahiane, Hsain. Historical dictionary of the Berbers (imazighen). Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2006.
  
  -- Iweala, Uzodinma. Beasts of no nation: a novel. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, c2005.
  
  -- Jansen, Jan. Entretiens avec Bala Kanté: une chronique du Manding du XXème siècle. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2006.
  
  -- Jambula tree: a selection of works from the Caine Prize for African Writing. Oxford: New Internationalist Publications; Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana Media, 2008.
  
  -- Jóob, Bubakar Boris. Doomi golo: nettali. Dakar, Senegal: Editions Papyrus Afrique, c2003. [A novel in Wolof by Boubacar Boris Diop.]
  
  -- Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. An evening with Tom Mboya: speeches, lectures, and remarks from prominent personalities: an advocacy and lobbying strategy. Nairobi: KNCHR, 2006.
  
  -- Larkin, Brian. Signal and noise: media, infrastructure, and urban culture in Nigeria. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
  
  -- Maathai, Wangari. Unbowed: a memoir. New York: Knopf, 2006.
  
  -- Mabanckou, Alain. Mémoires de porc-épic: roman. Paris: Seuil, c2006.
  
  -- Mamdani, Mahmood. Scholars in the marketplace: the dilemmas of neo-liberal reform at Makerere University, 1989-2005. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, c2007.
  
  -- Mann, Kristin. Slavery and the birth of an African city: Lagos, 1760-1900. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c2007.
  
  -- Matory, James Lorand. Black Atlantic religion: tradition, transnationalism, and matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c2005.
  
  -- The meanings of Timbuktu. Edited by Samil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne. Cape Town: HSRC Press in association with CODESRIA, 2008.
  
  -- La mémoire du Congo: le temps colonial. Gand [Belgium]: Editions Snoeck; Tervuren [Belgium]: Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, c2005. [Exposition "La mémoire du Congo. Le temps colonial," held at the Musée royal de l'Afrique centrale, Feb. 4-Oct. 9, 2005.]
  
  -- Mozambique-Réunion: esclavages, mémoire et patrimoines dans l'océan Indien: actes des conférences du deuxième Festival de L'Ile de Mozambique, les 25 et 26 juin 2004. Edited by Séverine Cachat. Saint-Maur-des-Fossés: Sépia, c2008.
  
  -- Ndebele, Njabulo S. Rediscovery of the ordinary: essays on South African literature and culture. Scottsville, South Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006.
  
  -- Nelson Mandela: the authorised comic book. Nelson Mandela Foundation with Umlando Wezithombe. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2008.
  
  -- New encyclopedia of Africa. John Middleton, editor in chief; edited by Joseph C. Miller. 5 vols. Detroit: Thomson/Gale, c2008.
  
  -- New perspectives on Islam in Senegal: conversion, migration, wealth, power, and femininity. Edited by Mamadou Diouf and Mara A. Leichtman. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
  
  -- New perspectives on the Sierra Leone Krio. Edited by Mac Dixon-Fyle and Gibril Cole. New York: Peter Lang, c2006.
  
  -- Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Wizard of the crow. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006.
  
  -- Nketia, J.H. Kwabena. The creative potential of African art music in Ghana: a personal testimony. Accra, Ghana: Afram Publications, 2004.
  
  -- Owomoyela, Oyekan. Yoruba proverbs. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, c2005. [Parallel texts in Yoruba & English.]
  
  -- Patrimoine et sources historiques en Afrique. Sous la direction d'Ibrahima Thioub. Dakar: Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Département d'histoire: Union académique international, Fontes Historiae Africanae, 2007.
  
  -- Pepetela. Jaime Bunda, secret agent: story of various mysteries. Laverstock: Aflame Books, 2006.
  
  -- Power and nationalism in modern Africa: essays in honor of Don Ohadike. edited by Toyin Falola and Salah M. Hassan. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, c2008.
  
  -- Roscoe, Adrian A. The Columbia guide to Central African literature in English since 1945. New York: Columbia University Press, c2008.
  
  -- Sankalé, Sylvain. A la mode du pays: chroniques saint-lousiennes d'Antoine François Feuiltaine, Saint-Louis du Sénégal 1788-1835. Paris: Riveneuve, [2007]
  
  -- Sharia implementation in northern Nigeria 1999-2006: a sourcebook. Edited by Philip Ostien. 5 vols. Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books, 2007.
  
  -- Sicherman, Carol. Becoming an African university: Makerere, 1922-2000. Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers, 2006.
  
  -- The Sierra Leone Special Court collection. Edited by C. Tofan. Oisterwijk, The Netherlands: AOLF Legal Publishers, c2008-
  
  -- Spaulding, Jay. The heroic age in Sinnar. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea Press, c2007.
  
  -- The study of Africa. Edited by Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. 2 vols. Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 2006-
  
  -- Tagwira, Valerie. The uncertainty of hope. Harare: Weaver Press, 2006.
  
  -- Thomas, Dominic Richard David. Black France: colonialism, immigration, and transnationalism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c2007.
  
  -- Women writing Africa: West Africa and the Sahel. Edited by Esi Sutherland-Addy and Aminata Diaw. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005.
  
  -- Writing African history. Edited by John Edward Philips. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005.
  
  -- Young, Jason R. Rituals of resistance: African Atlantic religion in Kongo and the lowcountry South in the era of slavery. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c2007.
  
  -- Zawawi, Sharifa M. Kanga: the cloth that speaks. The Bronx, N.Y.: Azaniya Hills Press, c2005.
  
  
  

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