ABOSEDE AJIBIKE GEORGE

History Department/ Africana Studies Program

Barnard College-Columbia University

3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Tel : (212) 854 – 3645 Fax : (212) 854 - 0559

E-mail: ageorge@barnard.edu

Education & Scholarship:

Sep 2000-Aug 2006 Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

Primary Field- African History

Secondary Fields- History of Islam

Islam in Africa

Women’s History

August 2006 Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

Doctor of Philosophy in African History

Ph.D. Thesis advised by Professor Richard Roberts

Title: “Gender and Juvenile Justice: Girl Hawkers in Lagos 1925-1950”

This project is grounded in scholarship on the end of empire in Africa and the origins of development work in British colonial Nigeria. It emerges from a concern with the criminalization of girl hawkers (itinerant sellers of petty goods) and the ultimately unsuccessful attempts of Nigerian and British colonial elites to eradicate the girl hawker phenomenon in late colonial Lagos. The girl hawker problem attracted the attention of British officials and Yoruba women philanthropists, stimulating conflicts between the two over child labor and the function of girlhood as a culturally contextualized and economically contingent life-stage. This study examines the history of the criminalization of girl hawkers in Lagos as a means for historicizing conceptualizations of girlhood, and childhood more broadly, in an urban African society.

April 2002 Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

Master of Arts in African History

MA Thesis:

Title: “Morality, Market Girls and the Nigerian Women’s Party 1925-1950”

A history of the Nigerian Women’s Party and its involvement with social welfare projects in late colonial Lagos, particularly the welfare of unattached girls in the city.

1994-1999 Rutgers College, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey, NJ, USA

Bachelor of Arts in History, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Languages:

Proficiency Yoruba, French

Basic Portuguese

Interests:

Urban Africa, history of youth and childhood, women’s studies, popular culture, sexuality, history of development work, African cultural and intellectual history.

Publications / Presentations:

Presented paper entitled “Not Up To Age: The Social Life of Innocence Ideology in Lagos, Nigeria, 1935-1950” at 5^th Annual Greater New York Historians of Africa Workshop, Hofstra University. March 2008

Presented paper entitled “Hawkers and Girlhood in Lagos, Nigeria 1940-1950” at American Historical Association meeting in Washington, D.C. January 2008.

“Feminist Activism and Class Politics: The Example of the Lagos Girl Hawker Project.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 35 (2007).

“Elite Women and Social Reform in Lagos.” A paper presented at the 2006 African Studies Association annual meeting, November 2006.

Dissertation: “Gender and Juvenile Justice: Girl Hawkers in Lagos, Nigeria (1925-1950)” Stanford University August 2006.

Presented paper entitled “Juvenile Justice and Social Reform in Lagos following the Children and Young Person’s Ordinance of 1943” at Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies Law and Colonialism Symposium. May 2004.

Presented Paper entitled “Nigerian Women and Social Reform during the Second World War” at the Spring 2003 annual conference of the Western Association of Women Historians.

Panelist at Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies Conference. May 2002.

Panel title: The Past as Precedent, Rethinking Cultural Contact and Connection in the Making and Unmaking of Twentieth Century African Social Orders.

Presented paper entitled “Morality, Market Girls and the Nigerian Women’s Party 1925-1950” at Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies Conference, “Democratization in Africa”. April 2001.

Presented Paper entitled “Women and Social Advocacy in Lagos” Presented at the University of California-Berkeley Interdisciplinary Workshop on Endangered Children, 2001.

Teaching:

Fall 2007 - present Barnard College, New York, NY

Assistant Professor of History

Courses

Lagos: The City Is…

Introduction to African Studies

African History 1800-Present

Historicizing and Memorializing Childhood

Social Difference and Activism: Critical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in Africa

2006 – 2007 Trinity College, Hartford, CT

Assistant Professor of African History and International Studies

Courses

African History Survey, Early Period

African History Survey, Modern Period

African History through Literature and Cinema

Children and Childhood in African Studies

African Cities: Past, Present, and Potential

Winter 2003 Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Teaching Fellow: Designed and taught the service-learning course “Memory, Migration and Nation in the New African Diaspora.”

2002-2003 Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Teaching Assistant: Assisted Professor Kennell Jackson in his course “African History in Novels and Film”.

Assisted Professor Richard Roberts with his global history course “The Slave Trade”.

Assisted Professor Ahmad Dallal with his course “Introduction to Islamic Civilization”.

July 2001 Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Assistant Program Coordinator: Assisted Professor Joel Samoff and the Stanford-Berkeley Joint Center for African Studies with developing and organizing the Ford Foundation sponsored Undergraduate Institute on South Africa. Convened and moderated a graduate student panel on future opportunities in African Studies for undergraduates.

Consulting:

Curriculum development consultant with SPICE- Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education, 2002.

Coordinator of Scholarly Events:

Organized symposium, “What Africa Can Teach the World” for Barnard College President inauguration ceremonies. October 2008

Co-coordinator, K-12 Teacher’s Workshop in coordination with the Metropolitan Museum, Education Division. October 2007

Member, Local Arrangements Committee- African Studies Association 50^th Anniversary Conference in NYC. Worked on New York City Celebrates Africa Week Program, Teacher’s Workshop, and general conference business. October 2007

Co-coordinator, Stanford Humanities Center, Empires and Cultures Workshop. The Empire and Cultures workshop is one of the longest running humanities workshops at Stanford. Each year the workshop is dedicated to examining an aspect of human society in trans-regional, trans-historic, interdisciplinary, and comparative imperial perspective. Workshop coordinators plan monthly workshop readings, make arrangements for invited guests, schedule meeting spaces, and organize an annual end of year conference. Sep - May 2006

Assistant Program Coordinator, Stanford-Berkeley Center for African Studies Undergraduate Institute on South Africa. Assisted Professor Joel Samoff with various administrative and academic tasks. Helped create speaker’s list, review student applications, review grant applications, and organize the two-week residential program for 15 undergraduates. Jun/Jul 2001

Awards & Grants:

Mellon Foundation Course Development Grant for Social Difference and Activism: Critical Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in Africa, Spring 2008

Mellon Foundation Course Development Grant for African Cities: Past, Present, and Potential, Spring 2007

Michelle Clayman Institute for Research on Gender, Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, Stanford, 2005-2006

Weter Foundation Dissertation Completion Grant, Stanford University, 2005

Obie Shultz Fellowship, Institute for International Studies, Stanford University, 2004

Graduate Research Opportunity, Dean of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, 2003

Public Scholarship Initiative Fellowship, Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford, 2002

Center for African Studies Fellowship, CAS-Stanford, Stanford University, 2001

Graduate Fellowship, Department of History, Stanford University, 1999-2004

Henry Carr Scholarship, Rutgers College, Rutgers University 1994-1999

Honorable Recognition:

Nominated for Stanford History Department Prize for Best Graduate Teaching of an Undergraduate Seminar, Spring 2003

Leadership & Professional Service:

Barnard College, Library and Academic Information Services Committee, 2008 – 2009

Co-founder, Barnard College Humanities Junior Faculty Research Workshop, 2007 – present

Member, Columbia University Institute for African Studies Faculty Steering Committee, 2007 - present

Member, Barnard College Ford Faculty Seminar on Difficult Dialogues, 2007 - present

Co-chair New York area K-12 Teachers Workshop coordinating committee for African Studies Association 50^th Anniversary Meeting Local Arrangements Committee. 2007

Faculty Teller Barnard College 2006-2007

Co-coordinator, “Empire and Cultures” Stanford Humanities Center Interdisciplinary Workshop, 2005-2006

Graduate Student Representative, Department of History Faculty Committee, 2002-2003

President, SASA Stanford African Student’s Association, 2002-2003

Member, Steering Committee on African Studies, Stanford University, 2001-2003

Graduate Student Representative, Departmental Committee on Affirmative Action, Stanford History Department, 2001-2002

Program Coordinator and Grant Writer, African Refugee Community Services (ARCS), 2000-2003

Professional Affiliations:

African Studies Association

American Historical Association

Modern Languages Association

Society for the History of Childhood and Youth