Emily Lynn Osborn
Carl E. Koch Assistant Professor of History
Field
African History; Francophone Africa; Gender in Africa; Colonialism; Technology Transfer and Diffusion
Profile
Emily Lynn Osborn is a historian of Africa whose research covers a broad chronological and geographical span. Her first book, Making States: Power, Gender, and Colonial Rule in Kankan-Baté, West Africa (Forthcoming, The Ohio University Press) analyzes the changing roles of men and women in the state of Kankan-Baté, an Islamic state founded in the seventeenth century in present-day Guinea-Conakry and incorporated into the French colonial empire in 1891. This book uses gender analysis to generate a fresh perspective on state-making processes and historical change in West Africa. Osborn has also published articles on the role of African colonial intermediaries in French West Africa and on the wild rubber trade and colonization in French Guinea.
Osborn's next book project, "Recycling Traditions: Aluminum Casting and the Making
of a Modern African Diaspora" is a study of technology transfer and diffusion that focuses on the history of aluminum casting and the creation of a trans-national, multi-ethnic network of artisans in Africa in the aftermath of World War II. Osborn spent the year 2005-2006 conducting research on this project in six West African countries.
Osborn earned her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her research has been supported by Fulbright IIE and Fulbright- Hays fellowships. She was also a Mellon Fellow at the Institute for Global Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. At Notre Dame, she is a Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies and at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
Teaching Interests
Osborn teaches introductory survey courses on precolonial and colonial African history; graduate and undergraduate seminars on life histories, autobiographies, and biographies; and sources and methods of African history.
Recent Publications
"Making States: Power, Gender, and Colonial Rule in Kankan-Baté, West Africa" (Forthcoming, New African History Series, Ohio University Press)
"Loyalty, Perfidy, and Scandal in Guinée Française: The Noirot-Penda Affair," in Lawrance, Osborn, and Roberts, eds., Intermediaries, Interpreters and Clerks: African Employees and the Making of Colonial Africa (Forthcoming with University of Wisconsin Press, 2006)
Co-Editor and Author, with Richard Roberts and Benjamin Lawrance, "Introduction: Intermediaries and the Making of Colonial Africa," in Lawrance, Osborn, and Roberts, eds., Intermediaries, Interpreters and Clerks: African Employees and the Making of Colonial Africa (Forthcoming with University of Wisconsin Press, 2006)
"Rubber Fever, Commerce, and French Colonial Rule in Upper Guinée, 1890-1913," The Journal of African History, 45:445-65 (2004)
"Circle of Iron: African Colonial Employees and the Interpretation of Colonial Rule in French West Africa," The Journal of African History, 44:27-49 (2003)
Under Review
"Cloaks of Power: Uniforms of Colonial Conquest and Occupation in the Western Soudan and Upper Guinée, 1891-1914"
"Kalifa Sacko of FONCOMA in Bamako, Mali: Aluminum Caster Extraodinaire"
Contact
Office: 475 Decio Faculty Hall
Phone: (574) 631-0377
Email: osborn.14@nd.edu
Office Hours: Monday, 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM(Fall 2006)