Jean Allman

Jean Allman earned her PhD in African History from Northwestern University in 1987. Her area of specialization is Ghana, where she has spent considerable time as a research scholar since the 1980s, affiliated with the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies and its Department of History. Allman’s research has been supported by the NEH, the ACLS, Fulbright-Hays, and the SSRC. Her recent books include “Tongnaab: The History of a West African God” and “Fashioning Africa: Power and the Politics of Dress.” Allman is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled, “A Country of the Future: Ghana and the Making of the Post-Colonial World.” Before coming to Washington University, Allman directed the University of Illinois’ Title VI Center for African Studies. She has served on the Board of Directors of the African Studies Association and as treasurer of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD). In addition to her scholarly and administrative work, she has co-edited two prize-winning African history book series and recently completed six years as co-editor of the “Journal of Women’s History.”

The thread that runs through all of my work is a fundamental concern with the ways in which African women and men have positioned themselves as central actors in the making of the globalized modern world.

Jean Allman