The Archibald Campbell Jordan Lecture is an annual lecture in fulfillment of the prize established for the best paper in African Studies in honor of A.C. Jordan’s trailblazing career in the field. The lecture is presented by the awardee graduate student as part of the Africa at Noon lecture series at the African Studies Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Archibald C. Jordan (1906-1968) was a South African writer and teacher and one of the first faculty members in the UW-Madison’s Department of African Languages and Literature. The lecture prize offered in his name was established immediately after his untimely death. A.C. Jordan earned his BA in English from the University College of Fort Hare in 1934 and his MA (1943) and Ph.D. (1957) from the University of Cape Town. He taught at the University of Cape Town from 1946 until 1962, when the ramifications of the events at Sharpeville forced him into exile at Wisconsin. His most famous work is Ingqumbo ye Minyanya (The Wrath of the Ancestors), published in 1940, later translated by the author into English. Other works include Toward an African Literature.
Purpose
Since 1969, the African Studies Program has awarded the A.C. Jordan Prize to a UW-Madison graduate student for the year’s best paper on Africa.
Eligibility
Papers must be nominated and submitted to the African Studies Program by a UW-Madison faculty member. Current graduate students from any academic department are eligible to receive the award. Nominated papers must meet the following criteria:
- The paper must be authored by a current UW-Madison graduate student. Students who intend to graduate in May 2025 or later are eligible.
- Papers of all types and from all fields are eligible. Master’s theses, stand-alone chapters of a Ph.D. dissertation, qualifying exams, published or soon-to-be-published papers will be considered.
- Papers must be submitted in English.
Prize Details
Prize winners receive $1000. The winner of the Jordan Prize is invited to present an Africa at Noon seminar. The names of Jordan Prize winners are inscribed on a plaque in our office. Past winners include Joseph Miller (1969), Catherine Newbury (1970), Tom Spear (1971), Michael Schatzberg (1972) and many other well-known figures in African Studies.
Nomination Deadline
May 15 at 11:59 PM CST
Nominate a Paper
To nominate a paper, please upload the following documents as a single PDF . You will need to login using your Wisc NetID and password.
- Your nominating cover letter
- The paper
2025 — Dorothy Lsoto
2024 — Ayodeji Wakil Adegbite
2023 — Erin Kitchell
2022 — Vincent Ogoti
“The Poetics of Unbreakable Bodies in Ebrahim Hussain’s Kinjeketile”
2021 — Justyn Huckleberry
2020 — Iréne Tombo
“Dimensions of Citizenship: The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo”
2019 — Kathryn Mara
“Jenoside, Génocide, Genocide: Socialization into Naming the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi”
2018 — Kaden Paulson-Smith
“How Nonnormative Gender and Sexuality Became a Target of Violent Political Repression”
2017— Sarah Stefanos
“Shaky Deals?: Domestic/Diasporan Agro-Investors and Tensions Between Developmentalism and Neopatrimonialism in Ethiopian Land Concessions”
2016 — Niwaeli Kimambo
“More People, More Trees: Social and ecological factors for tree cover and distribution and their implications for forest connectivity in Southern Tanzania”
2015 — Rachel Silver
“Brokers in an Unequal World: African Middle Figures from Colonialism to Neoliberalism”
2014 — No award given
2013 — Philip Janzen
“Caribbean Colonizers: Assimilation and Diasporic Imagination in the French Empire, 1880-1960”
2012 — Patrick Otim, History
“The Emergence of Local Intellectuals: Lacito Okech and the Writing of Early Twentieth-Century Acholi History in Northern Uganda”
2011 — Sofia Samatar, African Languages and Literature
“Charting the Constellation: Past and Present in Things Fall Apart”
2010 — Sean Bloch, History
“Snakes and Shifta: Violence and Modernity in Mid-Twentieth Century Kenya”
2009 — Lacy S. Ferrell, History
“Educative Practices in Taleland, 1900-1940”
2008 — Jessica Krug, History
“Social Dismemberment, Social Remembering: Contested Kromanti Identities, Nationalism, and Obeath, 1675-present.”
2007 — Leela Hazzah, Environmental Studies
“Living Among Lions: Community Attitudes Towards Conservation Initiatives and the Motivations Behind Lion Killing in Kenyan Maasailand”
2006 — Reem M. Hilal, African Languages and Literature
“The African (Arab) American Muslim Slave Narrative: Identities in Transition”
2005 — Mara Goldman, Geography
“Tracking wildebeest, locating knowledge: Maasai and conservation biology understandings of wildebeest behavior in northern Tanzania”
2004 — Daniel Magaziner, History
“One Word: Listening to Violence in Early Colonial Sierra Leone”
2003 — Ryan Ronnenberg, History
“Advance the Clock Once and for All: A Problem of Timing in Late Colonial Kenya”
2002 — Chris Duvall, Geography
“Symbols, Not Data: Rare Trees and Vegetation History in Mali”
2001 — Meredith E. Terretta, History
“A Women Can No Longer Be Kept on One Side: Cameroonian Women and the Creation of a Popular Nationalism, 1949 1960”
2000 — Stephen Volz, History
“A Chief of a Heathen Town: Kgosi Sechele and the Arrival of Christianity among the Tswana”
1999 — Stephen Corradini, History
“A Chief Luka and the Lari Massacre: Contrary Notions of Kikuyu Land Tenure and the Mau Mau War”
1998 — Leah Thayer, History
“I Am Not What You Are Searching For: Frameworks, Perceptions, and The Construction of the Liberian Refugee in Côte d’Ivoire, 1989-1997”
1997 — Novian Whitsitt, African Languages and Literature
“The Literature of Balaraba Ramat Yakubu and the Emerging Genre of Littatafai na Soyayya: A Prognostic of Change for Women in Hausa Society”
Karl Hassrick, African American Studies
“Derek Walcott: The Descent from Monkey Mountain”
1996 — Marie Krüger, African Languages and Literature
“Female Characters in Contemporary Kenyan Women’s Writing: Independent Figures or Subdued Voices?”
1995 — Sean Hanretta, History
“Changes in Gender Relations among the Zulu in the Nineteenth Century”
1994 — Susan O’Brien, History
“Spirit Possession as Historical Source: Gender, Islam and Healing in Hausa Bori”
1991 — Sauda Underwood Smith, African Languages and Literature
“Ebo and Ori: Mythic Consciousness in Death and the King’s Horseman and The Strong Breed”
1990 — Gretchen Bauer, Political Science
“The Legacy of the Colonial State in Namibia”
1987 — Pier M. Larson, History
“Slavery in Central Madagascar: Imerina in the 19th century”
1986 — Charles Gaddy, Political Science
“A Case for a Development Strategy for Africa’s Refugees”
1982 — Elizabeth Schmidt, History
“Competing for Power: An Analysis of Conflicting Interests in South African Society, 1924-1948”
1981 — John Sigel, African Languages and Literature
“Hausa Trickster Tales”
1979 — David S. Newbury, History
“Kamo and Lubambo: Dual Genesis Traditions on Ijwi Island”
1978 — Marc Dawson, History
“The History of Plague in Kenya: The Changing Epidemiology of the Disease Prior to 1920”
1976 — Deborah D. Foster, African Languages and Literature
“Blood Knot and The Islands as Anti Tragedy”
1975 — Paul Cox, Agricultural Economics
“Recent Changes in Land Tenure and Rural Development Policies in Tanzania”
1974 — John L. Bernsten, History
“Maasai and Iloikop: Ritual Experts and their Followers”
1973 — William Starns, Jr., History
“Land Tenure among Rural Hausa”
1972 — Michael G. Schatzberg, Political Science
“The Coup and After: Continuity or Change in Malian Politics?”
1971 — Thomas T. Spear, History
“Zwangendaba’s Ngoni, 1821 1890: A Political and Social History of a Migration”
1970 — M. Catharine Atterbury, Political Science
“Revolution in Rwanda”
1969 — Joseph C. Miller, History
“Cokwe Expansion, 1850 1900”