Prof. Ndubueze Mbah
NDUBUEZE L. MBAH, PHD
The Honourable Commissioner for Education
Ministry of Education, Enugu State, Nigeria.
PROFESSIONAL POSITION
Associate Professor of History and Global Gender and Sexuality Studies
The State University of New York at Buffalo.
EDUCATION
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) History, 2013
PhD with Distinction
Michigan State University, USA.
Bachelor of Arts History, 2007
B.A. First Class Honors| Summa cum laude |Overall Best Graduating Student
University of Nigeria.
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Mbah is an award-winning historian of slavery, imperialism, migration, and development in West Africa and the Atlantic world. His scholarship broadly examines the root causes of global inequalities, as manifest in gender hierarchies, legacies of racial disparities, and institutionalized systems of underdevelopment in Africa. Dr. Mbah in invested in decolonizing development in Africa, including by translating academic research to broader audiences, especially to children in the K-12 education system, and supporting innovative, decolonial, and sustainable institutional practices that empower African youth. Dr. Mbah is currently leading an international team of researchers in developing an Experiential Learning system of K-12 education in Africa.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
2022-2023 Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship
2023 New York African Studies Association Best Book Prize
2022 Wenner-Gren Foundation Post-Ph.D. Research Grant
2022 OVPRED/Humanities Institute Top Tier Research Grant, SUNY-Buffalo
2022 Gender Institute Research Grant, SUNY-Buffalo
2020 African Studies Association Best Book Prize Finalist
2020 ASWAD Rosalyn Terborg-Penn Book Prize Winner
2020 ASWAD First Book Prize Finalist
2019-2020 American Council of Learned Societies Centennial Fellowship [acls]
2019 Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy Research Grant, SUNY-Buffalo
2019 OVPRED/Humanities Institute Research Grant, SUNY-Buffalo
2015 Wenner-Gren Foundation Engaged Anthropology Grant
2016 Humanities Institute Faculty Research Fellowship, SUNY-Buffalo
2014 Civic Engagement Research Dissemination Grant, SUNY-Buffalo
2011-2012 Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant
2008-2013 Harold G. Marcus Distinguished Fellowship, Michigan State University
2007 University of Nigeria Overall Best Graduating Student Prize.
2007 College of Arts Best Student Prize, University of Nigeria.
2007 Indira Gandhi Memorial Valedictorian Prize, University of Nigeria.
SELECT PUBLIC LECTURES & PRESS
April 2023 Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, “Abolition Forgery: A History of the Afterlives of Slavery.”
May 2022 “Forging Autonomy in West Africa.” The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy.
Nov. 2021 New Books Network Interview: “Emergent Masculinities”
Feb. 2021 The McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, “Empire, Sovereignty, and Labor in the Age of Global Abolition.”
Nov. 2020 The University of Reading, United Kingdom, “Forgery: An African Habitus of Slavery and Colonialism,” International Research Seminar in Gender and African History.
Nov. 2012 “Emergent Masculinities.” The Wenner-Glen Blog.
SELECT PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
2019-Present Book Review Editor, Journal of West African History
2020-2024 President’s Advisory Council on Race
2022 Middle States Re-Accreditation Self-Study Committee on Curriculum and Assessment
2022 Review Committee, UB Excellence in Teaching Award for Graduate Teaching Assistants
2022 Working Committee, Title VI NRC for Caribbean and Latin American Studies
2020-Present General Education Diversity and Integrative Learning Curriculum Committee
2019-2021 Center for Diversity Innovation: Distinguished Visiting Scholars Selection Committee
2022-2023 Associate Review Editor (African History), American Historical Review
2021-2023 Vice-President, New York African Studies Association
2021 Co-Convener, New York African Studies Association 45th Annual Virtual Conference
2017 Chair and Convener, New York African Studies Association 42nd Annual Conference, UB
2016-Present Alison Des Forges Memorial Committee, University at Buffalo
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Emergent Masculinities: Gendered Power and Social Change in the Biafran Atlantic Age.
Abolition Forgery: A History of the Afterlives of Slavery.
LUKASA, History of Africa and the Diaspora #1: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, with Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke (New York City Department of Education CIVICS FOR ALL COMICS GROUP, 2023).
“Afropolitan Masculinity: Trans-Imperial Migration and the Forgery of Wife-Owning Husbands,” Africa Spectrum, Special Issue Article, 58, 3 (2023):267-293. DOI: 10.1177/00020397231206133.
“‘Wives Wishing to Join Their Husbands’ – Colonial Forgery, Gender Legibility, and Labor Migration in West Africa,” History in Africa: A Journal of Debates, Methods, and Source Analysis (October 2022):1-41.
