Professor Olufemi Vaughan Guest Speaker at Baruch Debates Diversity & Internationalization

Olufemi Vaughan: Bowdoin's first Geoffrey Canada Professor of Africana Studies and History

Professor Femi Vaughan, who will speak at the Newman Conference Center on 9/14/09, came to Bowdoin College from State University of New York (SUNY) Stony Brook, where he was a member of the faculty for 18 years and served as Director of International Studies, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, Interim Chair of Africana Studies, and most recently, as Director of the College of Global Studies and Associate Provost. Vaughan received both the President's and Chancellor's Medal for Excellence in Teaching from SUNY.

Vaughan has written extensively on the relationship between the state and society in Nigeria and West Africa, with influential scholarship on the history of the institution of chieftaincy and on comparative social movements. His interdisciplinary examinations of the historical processes of modern African state formation have earned him widespread recognition in the field, including a prestigious Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Fellowship in 2006-2007. His prize-winning book, Nigerian Chiefs: Traditional Power in Modern Politics, 1890s - 1990 (2000, Univ. of Rochester Press), is considered a seminal study in modern African political history.

For the 2008-2009 academic year, Vaughan taught Introduction to Africana Studies, Christianity and Islam in West Africa, and Conquest, Colonialism, and Independence: Africa since 1880.

Vaughan earned a B.A., and a M.A. in government from St. John's University and a Ph.D. in politics from Oxford University.