Wale Adebanwi

Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies

Wale Adebanwi is the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies. Adebanwi, a political scientist and anthropologist, was previously Rhodes Professor of Race Relations at Oxford University. His research addresses the social mobilization of interest and power in contemporary Africa as manifested in nationalism and ethnicity, race relations, identity politics, elites and cultural politics, democratic process, newspaper press and spatial politics. He is the author of three books, including Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning. Since 2016, he has been co-editor of AFRICA: Journal of the International African Institute and before then the co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.