In 2004, the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society established an African Consortium which included, in addition to Columbia University, the Universities of Cape Town (South Africa), Ghana, Ibadan (Nigeria) and Nairobi (Kenya). Inaugurated through a series of bilateral contracts, the consortium conducted pilot courses and strategic policy discussions on the basis of which it began developing a program of language-based socio-cultural studies. In 2010, these contracts were renewed with the addition of a fifth African university, Kwara State University (Nigeria).
Past programming has included regular visits to Columbia University by prominent African and Africanist scholars and intellectuals, such as Professor Kofi Anyidoho and prize-winning writer Antjie Krog. The consortium also includes a student exchange program with the University of Ghana.
Please check back in the coming months for details about developing programs in the African Consortium.
The Institute for Comparative Literature and Society is a co-sponsor of Copper Sun, Scarlet Sea, Columbia University’s new Undergraduate Journal of Africana Studies (est. 2011). Compiled by a board of editors representing the undergraduate student population at Columbia College, Sun and Sea features academic essays and research papers written by undergraduate students of Africana Studies at Columbia University, Brown University, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Dartmouth University, Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University.
Considering the broad range of studies branching forth under the umbrella of Africana Studies, the collection of papers featured in this academic journal represents research, analysis, and inquiry within the fields of African, African American, Latin American, and Caribbean Studies, which by association includes, but is not limited to, investigation within the anthropological, historical, political, and sociological academic disciplines.
Founded by board members of the African Diaspora Literary Society at Columbia University, Columbia’s Undergraduate Journal of Africana Studies provides an additional forum within the Columbia College undergraduate community for the discussion and exploration of topics within the discipline of Africana Studies, beyond students’ core curricular foci. Copper Sun, Scarlet Sea expands the reaches of this forum by featuring the theses and research of undergraduate students outside of Columbia College, at universities within the New England area and universities abroad. With this, Sun and Sea facilitates the growth and fortification of intellectual and social nexuses between academic communities.
Students who would like to submit to the journal or apply to serve on the board of editors should send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). For any specific information, please write to Jazmin Graves at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and Misha Kaufman at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).