Awarded 'Special Commendation' in the Noma Award for Publishing in
Africa 1998. The intellectual liberation of the study of Africa is the
battle cry of this forceful book. The author is one of Africa's younger
scholars, in the forefront of research and thinking about the role of
African scholars, and the ownership and state of African Studies; and
winner of The Noma Award for Publishing in Africa 1994. He describes
this book as an interrogation of African Studies, its formulations and
fetishes, theories and trends, possibilities and pitfalls. He argues
that, as a discursiveformation, African Studies is immersed in the
contexts and configurations of the western epistemological order; and
the crisis in African Studies in North America and Britain reflects
changing cultural policies as a result of the shifting ethnic and gender
composition o fclassrooms, tansformations in the global positions of
these countries, and the crisis of liberal values. The study has been
highly recommended by such distinguished African scholars as Professors
Mahmood Mamdani, Ali Mazrui, V.Y. Mudimbeand Adebayo Olikosh.