Welcome to the Center for African Studies

Berkeley's Center for African Studies was established in 1979 as an interdisciplinary research center to support basic research and training of scholars. The Center is one of the primary centers for research and scholarship on Africa in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the University of California system, and throughout the Northwestern United States. Over 90 faculty members from 30 departments and 7 colleges and professional schools at Berkeley bring a broad range of scholarly resources to diverse initiatives focused on Africa. The Center is also the administrative hub of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program(link is external) at Berkeley.

The Center works with many other institutions and programs across the Berkeley campus to support scholarly activities on a broad range of topics that address contemporary African issues. The Center provides fellowship opportunities for students majoring in traditionally defined fields to develop a comprehensive interdisciplinary program in African Studies. We work closely with Berkeley’s Global Studies(link is external) program on curriculum for students seeking to concentrate their studies on Africa. We collaborate closely with the Department of African American Studies(link is external) on our language program. We also organize public events (link is external) to complement the curriculum and research on campus.

The Center works with the seven other area studies centers at Berkeley, all of which are National Resource Centers(link is external) funded through the US Department of Education's Title VI (link is external) programs. The Center collaborates with other institutions of higher learning, including the Center for African Studies(link is external) at Stanford University on library collections, language instruction and pedagogy, and outreach.

The Center attracts scholars and students from around the globe in disciplines ranging from the humanities to engineering, bridging boundaries and forging new approaches to current scholarship, policy and practice. We engage these efforts through inter and intra-university, national, multinational, and cross-regional dialogues. We encourage you to become involved by subscribing to our listservs, attending our events.(link is external)

You may also donate online(link is external) to support the Center's student and research programs.

Read a note from our Director, Leo Arriola.