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Judith A. Byfield
Professor
Mcgraw Hall, Room 320
jab632@cornell.edu
607-255-8862
Educational Background
Ph.D. 1993. Columbia University
M.Phil. 1984. Columbia University
B.A. Dartmouth College 1980
Overview
Field Member, Africana Studies and Research Center, College of Arts and Sciences
Field Member, Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, College of Arts and Sciences
Fall 2016 Course Syllabi:
Departments/Programs
- History
- Africana Studies and Research Center
Graduate Fields
- Africana Studies
- Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
- History
Research
The primary focus of her scholarship has been women's social and economic history in Nigeria. Her research into in-depth studies on tie-dye production, World War II, Nigerian women's political activism and nationalism.
Currently, she is a Fulbright Global Scholar beginning a new project, “Curry Goat and Gari: West Indian Women in 20thCentury Lagosian Society.” It is inspired by the West Indian women she met during her research trips to Nigeria. Many met their husbands in the UK and moved to Nigeria with them. She became fascinated by the very creative ways in which they bridged their Caribbean and British backgrounds with Nigerian cultures. This project hopes to reveal new insights about diaspora formation and transnationalism through the experiences of these dynamic and enterprising women.
Courses
Spring 2021
- ASRC 1590 : History and Popular Culture in Africa
- ASRC 2452 : Dress Cloth and Identity
- ASRC 4901 : Honors Thesis
- ASRC 4903 : Independent Study
- ASRC 6901 : Independent Study
Fall 2021
- ASRC 2543 : In the Crossfire of Empires: Africa and World War II
- ASRC 4900 : Honors Thesis
- ASRC 4902 : Independent Study
- ASRC 6900 : Independent Study
Publications
A Great Upheaval: Women and Nation in Post-War Nigeria (Ohio University Press, forthcoming).
Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century, co-editor with Dorothy Hodgson (University of California Press, 2017).
Africa and World War II, co-editor with Carolyn Brown, Timothy Parsons, Ahmad Sikainga. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Gendering the African Diaspora: Women, Culture, and Historical Change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland,co-editor with LaRay Denzer and Anthea Morrison. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010).
Cross Currents: Building Bridges Across American and Nigerian Studies, Editor. (Ibadan, Nigeria: Book Builders, 2009).
The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria, 1890 – 1940 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002).