Jeremiah O. Arowosegbe
- Position: Intellectual History | Political Theory | Global African Studies
- Areas of expertise: African Intellectual History | African Politics | African Studies | Epistemologies of Africa and the Global South | Political Theory from the Global South
- Email: J.O.Arowosegbe@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 14.28B Social Sciences Building
Profile
I am at the Leeds University Centre for African Studies (LUCAS), School of History and School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS). I teach Intellectual History, Political Theory and Global African Studies. Before joining the University of Leeds in October 2023, I was a Senior Researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) and the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at Columbia University New York; Senior Researcher at the School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Princeton; Professor of History and Politics at the Department of History and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; and Senior Researcher at Africa Centre for Transregional Research (ACT) and Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Until October 2023, I was a Reader in Political Science at the University of Ibadan.
I am specialized and work in African Intellectual History; African Political Thought; Decolonization and Deconstruction Historiography; Postcolonial Studies and the Epistemologies of modern Africa. These entail comparative historical research and teaching on Africa's diaspora, Central Asia, Latin America, Middle East and South Asia.
Visiting Appointments and Positions:
2026: Professor of History and Politics at the Department of Political Science and Senior Researcher at Africa Centre for Transregional Research (ACT) and Arnold Bergstraesser Institute (ABI), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
2021: Professor of History and Politics at the Department of History and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
2019: Senior Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) Princeton, NJ
2015: Senior Researcher at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies (MESAAS) and Institute of African Studies at Columbia University in New York
2013: A. C. Jordan Researcher at Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town
2011: Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research, The University of the Western Cape
2009: American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research, The University of the Western Cape
2008: Guest Researcher at Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden
2008: Visiting Fellow at African Studies Centre, The University of Leiden
2007: Bill and Melinda Gates Visiting Fellow at the Five College African Scholars Programme, The University of Massachusetts
2007: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Fellow and Grantee at the Small Grants Programme for PhD Dissertations and Theses
2006: SEPHIS Fellow of the Humanities at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences Calcutta (CSSSC) and Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) New Delhi
2006: West African Research Association (WARA) Grantee of a Travel Grant Award to present a paper at the 20th World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) on "Is Democracy Working?" Fukuoka, 9–13 July
2005: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa Laureate in the Child-Youth Studies Institute on the Making of Child-Youth Identities in Africa
2004: Claude Ake Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Social Science (CASS) and the Department of Political Science, University of Port Harcourt, 01 April–31 December
1998: Second Place Award Winner at the all-Nigerian Universities Essay Competition on "Colonialism, Population and Reproductive Freedom", funded by the Reporters' Collective, African Scholarship Awards Foundation, New York. With a fellowship residence at the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 01 January–31 December.
Research interests
Academic Freedom and University Governance in the Global South: The focus of this research enquiry is on how academic freedom and its violations are understood across different national spaces in the Global South. I am interrogating the issues formulated in the discussions of academic freedom, decolonization, the state and university governance in represented universities in my case studies––Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, South Asia and the Middle East. Attention is paid to two considerations. One, the colonial foundations underlining the development of public education and the universities in these regions vis-a-vis the impact of the neo-colonial character of the states in shaping the postcolonial contexts of public education in these societies.
Based on my comparative historical and theoretical scholarship––which I do in conversation with Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948), Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891–1956), Raúl Prebisch (1901–86), Ranajit Guha (1923–2023), Frantz Fanon (1925–61), Bipan Chandra (1928–2014), Andre Gunder Frank (1929–2005), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1931–date), Samir Amin (1931–2018), Ali A. Mazrui (1933–2014), Claude Ake (1939–1996), Gayatri C. Spivak (1942–date), Mahmood Mamdani (1946–date), Partha Chatterjee (1947–date) and Dipesh Chakrabarty (1948–date), I bring a methodological proclivity to historicize and theorize the state in the Global South. I appreciate the connections between past developments and their continued impact on these continents vis-à-vis how they have been configured and how they might be transformed. I draw on the European colonial expansion in the early modern period and the development of colonial capitalism over many centuries. I underline its continued impact on the state in the Third World.
Academic Publications:
Books:
2018: Claude E. Ake: The Making of an Organic Intellectual. Pretoria: UNISA Press.
Articles:
2026: "A Political Economy of African Universities." Schools: Studies in Education 23(1):108–136.
2025: "Universities and the Right to Think in Africa." Australian Journal of Politics and History 71(1):52–72.
2024: "The Problem of Academic Freedom in Africa." Africa 94(5):722–737.
2024: "Battling to Save the Soul of Higher Education in Africa: Attacks on Intellectual Labour in Nigeria." Review of African Political Economy 51(182):623–633.
2024: "History and the Development of Historical Scholarship in Africa." History in Africa 51:211–235.
2023: "African Universities and the Challenge of Postcolonial Development." Africa 93(5):591–614.
2023: "Federalism and Development in Nigeria." Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 23(1):100–119.
2021: "Academic Freedom, Decolonization and the State in Africa." Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 22(3):275–297.
2021: "COVID-19 and Political Modernity in Africa: Citizens' Engagements and States' Responses." African Journal for the Psychological Study of Social Issues 24(1):113–122.
2020: "Territoriality and Violent Conflicts in Tivland." International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 28(3):436–465.
2020: "Academics and Election Administration in Nigeria." Journal of International Development 32(7):1009–1032.
2019: "Hausa-Fulani Pastoralists and Resource Conflicts in Yorubaland." Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies 21(8):1157–1187.
2017: "Corruption and Profligacy as Governance Failure in Nigeria." Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 26:122–153.
2016: "African Scholars, African Studies and Knowledge Production on Africa." Africa 86(2):324–338.
2016: "Citizenship and Resource Competition in Nigeria." Anthropological Forum 26(1):54–73.
2016: "Endogenous Knowledge and the Development Question in Africa." Cambridge Review of International Affairs 29(2):611–635.
2016: "Ethnic Minorities and the Land Question in Nigeria." Review of African Political Economy 43(148):260–276.
2014: "Introduction: African Studies and the Universities in Postcolonial Africa." Social Dynamics: Journal of African Studies 40(2):243–254.
2014: "African Studies and the Bias of Eurocentricism." Social Dynamics: Journal of African Studies 40(2):308–321.
2012: "The Making of an Organic Intellectual: Claude Ake, Biographical and Theoretical Orientations." African and Asian Studies 11(1–2):123–143.
2011: "Claude E. Ake: Political Integration and the Challenges of Nationhood in Africa." Development and Change 42(1):349–365.
2011: "State Reconstruction in Africa: The Relevance of Claude Ake's Political Thought." International Affairs 87(3):651–670.
2009: "Violence and National Development in Nigeria: The Political Economy of Youth Restiveness in the Niger Delta. Review of African Political Economy 36(122):575–594.
2008: "The Social Sciences and Knowledge Production in Africa: The Contribution of Claude Ake." Africa Spectrum 43(3):333–351.
Academic Publications and Research Impact:
2026: The Past and Future(s) of the Postcolonial University | African Arguments
See: Post by @polisatleeds.bsky.social — Bluesky. See also (19) Post | Feed | LinkedIn
2023: "African Universities and the Challenge of Postcolonial Development. Africa 93(5):591–614. Nine responses to this article were published as a special issue of Africa. See Debating African universities. Africa: Volume 94 - Issue 5 | Cambridge Core
2016: "African Scholars, African Studies and Knowledge Production on Africa. Africa 86(2):324–338. Four feedback were published as a special issue of Africa. See Debate: Knowledge production in Africa. Africa: Volume 86 - Issue 2 | Cambridge Core
2014: "Introduction: African Studies and the Universities in Postcolonial Africa." Social Dynamics: A Journal of African Studies 40(2):243–254. Social Dynamics: Vol 40, No 2. Six articles were published as a special issue. See: African Studies and Knowledge Production in the Universities in Africa: Social Dynamics: Vol 40, No 2.
2011: "State Reconstruction in Africa: The Relevance of Claude Ake's Political Thought." International Affairs 87(3):651–670. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2011.00995.x
Impact: This article generated two published ratings:
First: After 100 years of its publication, the Journal’s Editorial Team ranked this article as one of its three most impactful articles in the projection of a non-Eurocentric position on the Global South. See: www.medium.com/international-affairs-blog/impressions-from-the-archive-looking-back-on-100-years-of-international-affairs-1901912e1607
Second: It is listed in Reading List: Colonial Legacies in International Relations by the Journal. See: www.academic.oup.com/ia/pages/reading-list-colonial-legacies.
Qualifications:
PhD in Political Science: University of Ibadan
MPhil in History and Philosophy: CSSSC and ICSSR India
MSc in Political Science: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
BSc in Political Science: Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria
Professional Memberships:
African Association of Political Science
African Studies Association in the United Kingdom
African Studies Association in the United States of America
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa
Historical Society of Nigeria
International Political Science Association
Nigerian Political Science Association
West African Research Association
West African Research Center
Student education
In my past and present employments, I have developed and continue to teach the following undergraduate courses––History of Political Thought; Politics of Development and Underdevelopment; Problems of Political Philosophy; and Theories of the State. I also teach the following postgraduate courses––Colonialism and Social Formations in Africa and the Global South; Contemporary Political Analysis; and Selected Themes and Topics in Political Theory.
My postgraduate seminars, supervision and taught courses have focused on the provenance of African Intellectual History, African Studies and Political Theory. I teach these postgraduate courses: African Government and Politics; Colonialism and Social Formations in Africa and the Global South. My postgraduate seminar courses are Africa in World Politics; Selected Topics in African Political Thought; and Selected Topics in Colonialism. One of my towering achievements is my supervision of a dissertation on the works of the late Chinua Achebe. I have also taught related courses at the University of Cape Town and University of Gothenburg.