Jan Vansina
Jan Vansina | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 8 February 2017 | (aged 87)
Alma mater | Catholic University of Leuven |
Scientific career | |
Fields | African history |
Institutions | University of Wisconsin–Madison |
Doctoral students | David Newbury |
Jan Vansina (14 September 1929 – 8 February 2017)[1] was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. He was a major innovator in the historical methodology of oral history. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he taught several generations of students and, according to a biographer, "set the pace in African historical studies from the 1950s into the 1990s."[2]
Biography
Vansina was first trained as a
Vansina obtained his doctorate in history from the Catholic University of Leuven in 1957. After his retirement in 1994,[4][5] he became a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and lived in Madison, Wisconsin. Vansina died of lung cancer in Madison.[4]
Vansina assisted Alex Haley (the author of the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family) in deciphering several African words that had been handed down from Haley's ancestors, determining that they were of Mandinka origin.[6][7]
Selected works
- Vansina, Jan (1965). Oral Tradition. A Study in Historical Methodology (Translated from the French by H. M. Wright). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Vansina, Jan (1966). Kingdoms of the Savanna. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (1978). The Children of Woot. A History of the Kuba Peoples. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (1985). Oral Tradition as History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (1990). Paths in the Rainforests. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (1994). Living With Africa. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (2004). Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Translated from the French by the author). Africa and the Diaspora series. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (2004). How Societies Are Born: Governance in West Central Africa Before 1600. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
- Vansina, Jan (2010). Being Colonized: The Kuba Experience in Rural Congo, 1880–1960. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
- Vansina, Jan (2014). Through the Day, through the Night. A Flemish Belgian Boyhood and World War II. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
References
- ^ "Trailblazing African History Scholar Jan Vansina Passes Away". 13 February 2017.
- ISBN 9781884964336.
- S2CID 143970768.
- ^
- ^ "Deceased Fellows. British Academy" (PDF).
- ^ "Searching for Roots". Every Generation. 2003. Archived from the original on 2 April 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
Further reading
- Harms, Robert W. ed. Paths toward the past: African historical essays in honor of Jan Vansina (African Studies Assn, 1994).
- S2CID 163695408.
- Vellut, Jean-Luc (2021). "Jan Vansina (1929-2017): Un itinéraire rebelle et pionnier". In Ndaywel E Nziem, Isidore (ed.). Afrique centrale ancienne : Histoire et culture : En partage avec Jan Vansina. Paris: Harmattan. pp. 9–26. ISBN 978-2-343-21603-4.
- Mabiala Mantuba-Ngoma, Pamphile (2021). "Vansina et la valorisation des traditions orales". In Ndaywel E Nziem, Isidore (ed.). Afrique centrale ancienne : Histoire et culture : En partage avec Jan Vansina. Paris: Harmattan. pp. 253–76. ISBN 978-2-343-21603-4.
- Wagner, Michele D. (2017). "Jan Vansina (14 September 1929 – 8 February 2017)". History in Africa (44): 5–9. S2CID 164818679.
See also
External links
- "History Facing the Present: An Interview with Jan Vansina", by Karel Arnaut and Hein Vanhee (November 2001)
- "Jan Vansina on the Belgian Historiography of Africa: Around the Agenda of a Bombing Raid", by Jean-Luc Vellut
- Archive Jan Vansina, Royal Museum for Central Africa