The University of Oxford has appointed
Nigerian Wale Adebanwi to its Rhodes Professorship in Race Relations at
the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies. He becomes the first black
scholar to occupy the position since its creation over 60 years ago.
Adebanwi, who has a long career in
journalism and the academia, will be the next Director of the African
Studies Centre at Oxford. The 47-year-old takes over from Professor
William Beinart, who retired from the position in 2015.
The Rhodes Professorship is named after
Cecil Rhodes, a British industrialist who was prime minister of South
Africa’s Cape colony in the late 19th century.
Adebanwi is currently Professor at the
University of California, Davis. He has also been a Bill and Melinda
Gates Scholar at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
As an academic and literary critic, he has authored and edited 10 books
and written several articles in journals of Social Science and
Humanities and is presently editor of the journal, Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.
Adebanwi’s forays into the world of
scholarship followed a period in which he served as writer, public
affairs journalist and editor with several newspapers and magazines. He
wrote for TheNews, a magazine which was a front for the struggle against
military rule in Nigeria. He later became a lecturer at the Department
of Political Science in the University of Ibadan.
Source: Connect Nigeria
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