Penda Mbow

Penda Mbow (born 1955) is a historian, an activist, and a Senegalese politician. Minister of Culture of Senegal for several months in 2001, she is a professor at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and president of Mouvement citoyen (Citizens' Movement).

Biography Penda Mbow was born in April 1955.

In 1986, she obtained a doctorate in Medieval History at Université de Provence in France, with a thesis titled L'aristocratie militaire mameluke d'après le cadastre d'Ibn al-Ji'an : éléments de comparaison avec la France (in English: The Mameluke Military Aristocracy after the Public Register of Ibn al-Ji'an: Elements of Comparison with France). Her academic research focuses on African intellectual history and Islamic gender studies. Became a professor in 2010.

Awards and distinctions Fulbright Scholarship, Michigan State University Rockefeller Foundation award, for research at the Bellagio Center in Italy. Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur Francaise (Knight of the French Legion of Honor) 2003 Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Mérite, France, 1999. Honorary doctor at the University of Uppsala in January 2005.