Kathleen Sheldon's picture

Real name: 

Primary Discipline

Primary Discipline: 

  • HumanitiesHistoryAfrican history

Further Specification: 

Women's history
Secondary Discipline

Secondary Discipline: 

  • Social Sciences

Biography: 

After I received my Ph.D. in African history from UCLA in 1988, with a dissertation on working women in Mozambique, I began a decade of adjunct, part-time, and temporary teaching positions in southern California. For personal and family reasons, I was not interested in relocating in search of a permanent position elsewhere, so I remained at UCLA, where I benefited from my research affiliation at the Center for the Study of Women for more than 30 years, until they ended that program.

I was elected to the Board of the African Studies Association (ASA) (2004-2007), and later appointed as Treasurer of the organization (2013), and I have contributed in a variety of positions for the ASA Women’s Caucus, the Western Association of Women Historians, and on the Program Committee for the 2008 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, among other service positions. I was also a founder of the Lusophone African Studies Organization, and continue as chair as well as editing our network, h-luso-africa. I was an appointed member of the Santa Monica Commission on the Status of Women for ten years, and also served on the board of the Santa Monica Public Library.

My books include African Women: Early History to the 21st Century, Pounders of Grain: A History of Women, Work, and Politics in Mozambique (2002) and the Historical Dictionary of Women in Sub-Saharan Africa (2nd ed., 2016).

Current research areas: 

African history

Recent scholarly activity: 

I am currently on the editorial board for the African History section of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia.

Recent publications: 

"Women in Africa and Pan-Africanism," in The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism, ed. Reiland Rabaka (Routledge, 2020).
"'Down with Bridewealth': The Organization of Mozambican Women Debates Women's Issues," in Women's Political Communication in Africa: Issues and Perspectives, ed. Sharon Adentutu Omotoso (Springer, 2020).

Forthcoming research: 

"Many Waves, One Ocean: My Socialist Feminist Approach to African Women's History," forthcoming in a volume edited by Alicia Decker, under review at Ohio University Press.
"'We are born equal': Graça Machel and her International Contributions," under review at the International Journal of African Historical Studies.

Other activities: 

I am part of the editorial team for H-Luso-Africa
 
 

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