The African Humanities Map is the first phase of CHCI’s African Humanities Initiative, and information obtained during this phase will help to inform future projects, including the African Humanities Workshops.
With the African Humanities Map, CHCI is particularly interested to learn about and document the activities of humanities centers and institutes across the African Continent (especially outside of South Africa), as well as those projects and programs that share the function of humanities centers and institutes, whether undertaken inside or outside of the university by NGOs, university departments, research groups, cultural organizations, journals, publishing houses, museums, or galleries. At this stage, the project is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to generate in-depth case studies that represent diverse institutional formations. We are interested in learning about projects in the public and academic humanities that support ongoing activities through which scholars and students from across disciplines converge or through which scholarly and non-scholarly communities intersect, including activist and artistic communities. We are interested to learn more about the locations, histories, missions, and organizational structures of these projects.
To date there has been no project of this sort, one that reflects the diversity – both the richness and the scarcity – of humanities work in Africa, and we are thrilled to work very soon with African organizations willing to participate in this project.