Jeffrey Ahlman, PhD

Jeffrey Ahlman is a Professor of History and Gwendolen Carter Professor of African Studies at Smith College, where he specializes in African political, social, and cultural history. He is the current chair of Smith College History Department and African Studies Program. He earned his BA in History from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and his MA and PhD in History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the recipient of a number of grants and fellowships from organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Africana Studies, the University of Virginia’s Carter G. Woodson Institute, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the American Historical Association, and the West African Research Association.

He is most recently the author of Ghana: A Political and Social History (Zed Books, forthcoming November 2023). His previous books include Living with Nkrumahism: Nation, State, and Pan-Africanism in Ghana (Ohio University Press, 2017) and Kwame Nkrumah: Visions of Liberation (Ohio University Press, 2021). His published articles have appeared in the Journal of African History, the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Africa Today, Ghana Studies, and Kronos: Southern African Histories, among other venues.

He is currently working on a project tentatively titled W. E. B. Du Bois’s Africa: History, Theory, and the Politics of a Discipline.

In addition to these larger projects, he has published essays on postcolonial Ghanaian state-citizenry relations, pan-Africanism, and African transnational networks in journals including the Journal of African History, Africa Today, Ghana Studies, Kronos: Southern African Histories, and the International Journal of African Historical Studies. He is also a member of the African Studies Association, American Historical Association, Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora, Ghana Studies Association, West African Research Association, and the Africa Network.