These are photos I have taken at various times and places of some well known scholars in African studies.  Of course their appearance on this page in no way implies their endorsement of anything I say.  Or vice versa, come to think of it.
 

Jan Vansina is the single most important figure in the history of African history.  He almost singlehandedly invented the field of precolonial history, and has done the most to develop it since. He was one of the first scholars chosen for the African Studies Association's Distinguished Africanist Award. He is also a wonderful person, and took much time to discuss the situation of African history in Japan, and many other subjects, when I passed through Wisconsin a few years ago.  My daughter wanted to get in the picture, too, so here is a photo with the three of us.  Look at some of his many publications on Amazon.com.

Merrick Posnansky is one of the foremost archaeologists who has worked in Africa.  He has spent much time in Uganda, Ghana and many other countries.  One of his most important  contributions has been in the field of cultural conservation - in 1998 he was honored by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association with their leadership award, which is only bestowed every three years at the Triennial African Art Symposium.  His  thrust in recent years has been on the archaeology of the African diaspora, hence his students' work has been in Jamaica, Benin and Togo. This photo was taken during the Kramo expedition to Begho, Ghana in early 1979.  At the time Merrick was my advisor for my M.A. degree in African Area Studies at UCLA. Merrick retired a few years ago, but he is still very active in scholarship.

The late Ibrahim Yaro Yahaya was the world's foremost authority on the Hausa language.  He was the author of innumberable books and articles in both Hausa and English about Hausa folklore, literature, linguistics and other topics until his untimely death in a tragic car accident a few years ago.  His friends will mourn not only his great erudition, but his warm hospitality and his irrepressible sense of humor.  Allah ya jik'ansa, amin.

Philip Shea is a specialist on the dyed cloth industry of Kano, Nigeria.  He is also one of the mainstays of the history department at Bayero University, Kano.  This is Phil at the Kano Club several years ago, after a few beers.

Paul Eguchi is a specialist on Fulfulde folklore at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. He's an all-around great guy, and the first to introduce my wife to African languages. He also hosted me at the Museum doing research about African studies in Japan, and sent me to Nigeria for research as well.

Murray Last literally wrote the book on the Sokoto Caliphate.  Now he writes about a lot of things, and teaches at University College in the University of London.

Garba Sa'idu is head of the Arabic section of the Kano State Archives.  He is also a wonderful help to anyone who is interested in the history of Islam in Nigeria, and especially in the Fulfulde (or Fula, Peul Tukolor etc.) language.   His other achievements are too numerous to mention, but not least among them are that he has raised daughters who are among the most highly educated persons in Nigeria.

John Hunwick is the world's foremost expert on the Arabic literature of Africa and on blacks in north Africa.  He also edits the journal Sudanic Africa.  This is him at home in Evanston, Illinois, outside Chicago, where he teaches at Northwestern University.  Here are a few of his publications.

Paul Lovejoy is one of the world's foremost authorities on African economic history and has published a number of works on northern Nigerian history. More recently he has become interested in slavery and the African diaspora.  This is him organizing a workshop at York University, Toronto, where he teaches in the history department.  Here are some of his publications on Amazon.com.

Anthony Kirk-Greene is one of the most important scholars in Nigerian colonial history, and co-author of Teach Yourself Hausa.  It would be impossible to describe all the books he has written or edited, let alone the articles he has produced.  This was taken at Oxford shortly before his retirement.  Here is another of him and me together after my talk to his Oxford graduate (excuse me, postgraduate) seminar.  Here are a few of his unbelievably voluminous publications.

Patrick Manning is most famous for his study Slavery and African Life : Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades.  Although he came to UCLA for the 1992 workshop on US-Japan cooperation in African studies, this was taken at an American Historical Association meeting in Chicago.

Robin Law is another specialist on the history of the Atlantic slave trade, and of the African kingdoms involved in it.  This is him talking to another participant in Paul Lovejoy's workshop.

Sani Zaharaddin (standing with the microphone) is a former Vice Chancellor of Bayero University, Kano.  This is him speaking to a seminar organized by the Kano State History and Culture Bureau.  He's the guy who asked me to talk to this seminar, as was later written up in the local newspaper.

Jonathan Reynolds isn't very famous yet, but I think he's a guy to watch out for.  He has been at Paul Lovejoy's slave trade workshops at least twice and is a very memorable speaker.  He just started his own website, too.

Ibrahim Jumare has recently completed his Ph.D. from York University, Toronto, where he was supervised by Paul Lovejoy.  I've seen him present papers at several conferences, not only at Lovejoy's workshops but at a major conference in Nigeria, as well.  He's another guy to watch out for. Lately he's been back in Nigeria, where he teaches at Usumanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.

Sean Stilwell is another of Paul Lovejoy's Ph.D. students.  This is he and I outside the Institute of Oriental Culture at the University of Tokyo.  Sean came there for the Islamic Area Studies Project workshop on Slave Elites in Africa and the Middle East.  His paper was on slave elites in Kano. Now he's at the history department of the University of Vermont.

Ahmad Sikainga is from the Sudan, and is now an associate professor of history at Ohio State University.  He came out for the same conference.  This is he and Sean at Ghanaba, a Ghanaian restaurant in Tokyo, at the Africanist welcome party just before the conference.  His publications are also available through Amazon.com.

Here's the Africanist contingent at the slave elites conference.  From left to right they are: Professor Jan Hogendorn of Colby College, a specialist on African economic history, Sean Stillwell, Ahmad Sikainga, and Yoshiko Kurita, a Japanese scholar who works on the history of the Sudan.  She is one of the few historians in Japan who works on the history of Africa south of the Sahara.

Robert Ratcliffe teaches Arabic at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Institute for the Study of the Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA.) He specializes in Arabic in North Africa.  This is him a the party to welcome the Africanist participants at the slave elites conference.

No, I'm not as famous as most of these other guys.  But what the hey, it's my website, isn't it?  Here's a picture of me reading a lecture about the history of the Hausa language at Bayero University Kano in 1985.  The talk was featured on the evening news, and was later published in Nigeria.  And yes, that's how I dress formally in Africa.  I tried wearing a suit once, but it only made me understand why so few Africans do.

Now that I've written this I'm embarrassed that I don't have pictures of other friends.  When I can I'll be adding more photos here, of Africanists from around the world, and especially Japan.

Keep coming back.