Morse Distinguished Lectures

Year Speaker Affiliation Topic
1989 Maurice Strong President, World Federation of United Nations Associations Africa Beyond the Famine: The Case For Hope
1991 Michael Glanrz National Center for Atmospheric Research Global Warming and Environmental Change: Winners and Losers in Africa
1992 Gibson Kamou Kuria Lawyer and human rights activist Human Rights in Africa
1993 Richard Joseph Carter Center of Emory University The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Time of African Crisis
1994 Tayeb Saleh Novelist The Writer and National Identity
1995 Paul Lovejoy York University Toronto Africans in Diaspora: Revisionist Interpretations of Ethnicity
1996 Lamin Sanneh Religion and history scholar Translation and the Rebirth of Culture: Christianity and the African Response
1997 Adam Kuper University of Uxbridge, England Social Anthropology and South Africa: An Inside Job
1998 Paul Berliner Northwestern University Musical Imagination and Meaning in Zimbabwe’s Mbira Music: Ever-Changing Patterns of Performance and Reception
1999 Carolyn Brown Rutgers University Cowboys, Letterwriters, and Dancing Women: Identity and Struggles over Space Leisure and Time in Enugu, Nigeria 1914–1955
2000 Robert Harms Yale University Worlds of the Slave Trade: The Voyage of the Diligent in 1731–1732
2001 Calestous Juma Harvard University Africa in the Age of Technology: In Search of New Sources of Economy Renewal
2002 Joe Lugala University of New Hampshire AIDS, Orphans and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
2003 Kenneth Kaunda First President, Republic of Zambia Africa and the New Food Technology: Threat or Bright Promise
2004 Wande Abimbola Obafemi Awolowo University Youth and Generational Change in the Ifa Oral Tradition
2005 Ahmad Sikainga Ohio State University Local Perspectives on the Sudanese Conflict
2006 Lansine Kaba University of Illinois, Chicago Islam Beyond the Myth: A West African Perspective
2008 Célestin Monga The World Bank Is Africa Really at a Turning Point?: The Economics and Politics of Hope
2009 Burt Singer, Calestous Juma, James Webb Princeton University, Harvard University, Colby College Africa 2060 AD: What We Don’t Know About Malaria in Africa and When Didn’t We Know It
2011 Suliman Baldo Africa Director, International Center for Transitional Justice Post-Referendum Challenges in Sudan and South Sudan
2012 Fatou Bensouda Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Court Advancing Security, Dignity and Growth: The Role of the International Criminal Court in Ending Impunity and Fostering Greater Well Being
2013 Dr. Maman Sidikou Nigerien Ambassador to the US Good and Bad Politics: Challenges and Opportunities for African Education Amid Instability
2015 Howard W. French Former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and in West and Central Africa Continents in Motion: How Today’s China-Africa Encounter Came About and What it Means for the World
2016 Zakes Mda Professor of Creative Writing, Ohio University Culture is the Center of Our Struggles: Intertextuality and the Creative Process
2017 Peter Alegi Professor of History, Michigan State University African Sport: Colonialism, Independence, Globalization.
2018 Barbara M. Cooper Professor of History, Rutgers University Reflections on a Baby Scandal: Paradoxes of Fertility and Infertility in West Africa
2019 Souleymane Bachir Diagne Chair, Department of French and Romance Philology, Columbia University Discussing Universalism in a Post-Bandung World
2020 Akosua Adomako Ampofo Professor of African and Gender Studies, University of Ghana
President of the African Studies Association of Africa		 Young African Men Living & Performing Blackness in the Diaspora
2022 Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University Islam and the Post-Colonial State in Africa: The Formation of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (1960-2022)
2023 Vanessa Nakate UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Same Storm, Different Boats – Africa and Climate Justice