Workshop – Intellectual histories of post-independence Africa

There is a growing body of scholarship by historians and others exploring the intellectual history of politics and society in post-independence Africa, adopting a variety of different methodologies and approaches to do so. Prompted by the recent publication of Miles Larmer’s 2021 book, ‘Living for the City: Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt’, this workshop offers an opportunity to reflect on and discuss current research and potential ways forward for this fast developing field.

The speakers at the workshop will be:

Miles Larmer, University of Oxford – Living for the City: Social Change and Knowledge Production in the Central African Copperbelt

Stephanie Wanga, LSE – Popular Culture as Source: Methodological Questions for Interrogating Statehood in Africa

Ismay Milford, University of Edinburgh – East Africa and the history of Information Science

Justin Willis, Durham University – Uganda’s past, Ugandan futures: debates over government in 1979-80