Abosede George

Abosede George is the Tow Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies at Barnard College and Columbia University in New York, where she is also the Director of its Institute of African Studies. She teaches courses on African migrations, historical mapping, urban history, African history, childhood and youth studies, girl studies, women's studies, and migration studies,

Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development was published in 2014 by Ohio University Press and received the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize in 2015 from the Women’s Caucus of the African Studies Association, as well as Honorable Mention from the New York African Studies Association.

Background

Abosede George obtained her B.A. in history from Rutgers University in 1999. She proceeded to Stanford University where she earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history in 2002 and 2006 respectively.

Career George began her teaching career in 2003 at Stanford University as a Teaching Fellow. In 2006, she moved to Trinity College as an assistant professor of history and international studies. George joined the faculty of Barnard College and Columbia University in 2007. In the Fall of 2022, George was admitted as a Fellow in Residence at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Amsterdam for her project, "Migrants and the Making of Urban Culture in Nineteenth Century Lagos."

George has published widely on subjects such as girlhood in African/colonial cities, urbanism and social reform in colonial Africa, among others. Her articles have appeared in several first-tier, peer-reviewed academic journals, including the Journal of Social History, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and the Scholar and Feminist Online. George was one of the seven historians engaged in the AHR Conversation themed “Each Generation Writes Its Own History of Generations”. Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, which was published in 2014, won her the 2015 Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize as the best scholarly book. Lately, she won the 2019 Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award for her article "Saving Nigerian Girls: A Critical Reflection on Girl-Saving Campaigns in the Colonial and Neoliberal Eras".

Her publications have appeared in the American Historical Review, the Journal of Social History, Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Meridians, Women’s Studies Quarterly, the Journal of West African History, and the Washington Post among other outlets. She is the founder of The Ekopolitan Project, a digital forum dedicated to historical research on migrant communities in nineteenth- and twentieth century Lagos, West Africa.

George maintains faculty affiliations with the Africana Studies Program at Barnard, the Institute for African Studies at Columbia (IAS), the Barnard Center for Research on Women (BCRW), and the Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference (CCASD). She is a member of the following professional organizations: African Studies Association, Society for the History of Childhood and Youth, and Nigerian Studies Association where she is the current President.

Beyond academia, Abosede George has undertaken a number of creative, historical projects. For instance, the 2018 Lagos Photo Festival featured George's audio piece project which reworks the archives of a court case from the late 1800s in Lagos, Nigeria. An audio booth was provided in which visitors would sit in and listen to the trial and testimonies from the court case Ayebomi vs. Regina. The work received coverage by Vogue Italia.

Selected publications

Winner of the 2019 Paula J. Giddings Best Article Award.