Abosede George

Abosede George is a historian of Modern Africa. She earned her BA in History and Political Science at Rutgers University(1998), her MA in history at Stanford University(2002), and her PhD also in History at Stanford University(2006). Prior to joining Barnard College, Dr. George was Assistant Professor of History at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She joined the faculty of Barnard College and Columbia University in 2007. She is Associate Professor in the departments of History and Africana Studies at Barnard College and Columbia, and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia.

Her areas of specialization include West African history, most specifically the History of Lagos, the history of Youth and Childhood, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Urban History, and Migration History.

At Barnard and Columbia, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on African urban history, the history of childhood and youth in Africa, women, gender, and sexuality in African history, and African migrations since the mid-20th century

Her book, Making Modern Girls: A History of Girlhood, Labor, and Social Development, was published by Ohio University Press. It received the Aidoo-Snyder book prize in 2015 from the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus. Her writings have appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Journal of West African History, Meridians, Women's Studies Quarterly, Scholar and Feminist Online , Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the American Historical Review, the Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth,The Washington Post, and the Bloomsbury press series, A Cultural History of Youth among others. Her current research examines how migrant diasporic and refugee communities reshaped notions of citizenship and belonging in 19th century Lagos.

Dr George is the co-convenor of the African Studies Association Women’s Caucus, and a past member of the Barnard Center for Research on Women's Executive Committee, where she continues to serve on the Advisory Board. She is a member of the executive board of the Global Urban History Project and on the executive committee of the Society for the History of Childhood and Youth. She is a member of the editorial board of ILWCH-the International Labor and Working Class History Journal as well as the editorial board of the Journal of the History of Sexuality. She is committed to the equitable diversification of higher education internationally, and has mentored scores of junior colleagues in the U.S. and Nigeria towards that end. She is a member of the Columbia University Senate. She's proud to be one of the founders and a former board member of the Lagos Studies Association.