This special issue of the African Studies Review commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the African Studies Association’s (ASA) Graduate Student Paper Prize. In 2001, the African Studies Association’s Board of Directors established the annual prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the previous year’s Annual Meeting. This special issue is dedicated to re-releasing the eleven articles published since 2001 in ASR by winners of the Graduate Student Paper Prize (hereafter, “the GSP Prize”) ...

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The theme of agency definitely takes center stage in the most recent publications in African women’s studies. These include Judith Byfield’s The Great Upheaval: Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria (2020), Naminata Diabaté’s Naked Agency: Genital Cursing and Biopolitics in Africa (2020), Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué’s Gender, Separatist Politics, and Embodied Nationalism in Cameroon (2020), Besi Brillian Muhonja’s Radical Utu: Critical Ideas and Ideals of Wangari Muta Maathai (2020), and Grace Musila’s Wangari Maathai’s Registers of Freedom: Voices of Liberation (2020), among the most notable recent publications....

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The African Studies Review began its life as the African Studies Bulletin in 1956, taking its current title in 1970. It was then and remains the flagship journal of the African Studies Association. As such, it has reflected the generally broad interests of the mission, editorial boards and membership of the ASA. As someone who works in African literatures (written, oral and cinema), I’ve published articles and reviews in ASR since the early 1980s. Over several decades ASR has published some very fine articles on African humanities including a special issue in 1986. The nine outstanding works featured in this anthology further testify to the ASR’s ongoing efforts to present quality scholarship in these related fields....

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