Dartmouth professor Ifi Amadiume's book "Male Daughters, Female Husbands" was recently selected as one of the 100 best books by African authors of the 20th century.
The Zimbabwe International Book Fair, along with organizations such as the African Publisher's Network and the Pan-African Bookseller's Association, selected the list from over 1,500 fictional and non-fictional submissions. Amadiume's book is one of 26 academic works listed.
The book fair says its purpose is to celebrate achievements of African authors and to further the dissemination of the most influential books by African authors in the 20th century.
Also on the list are books by such prestigious figures as Nelson Mandela and Chinua Achebe, author of "Things Fall Apart."
The impact of Amadiume's book, published in 1987, was integral to Dartmouth's decision to recruit her, according to Religion Department chair Ronald Green. Although the book won Amadiume recognition as early as 1989, when she received the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award, the author was surprised by its recent acclaim.
"I had not known that the book was nominated, and this came as a complete surprise to me when I was e-mailed by my publishers in London," Amadiume said, adding that she hadn't even realized that the list was being compiled.
"I'm so pleased that an award recognizing African voices in global terms has been created by Africans," she said, explaining that most African contributions to the international intellectual community have been contingent upon European and American awards, such as the Nobel Prizes.
Born in Nigeria, Amadiume earned a Ph.D. from the University of London before coming to Dartmouth. While her life experiences on three continents inform her present perspective, her field work is focused upon traditional African society.
Her award-winning first book "subverts the superstition that the public sphere is a rigidly masculine structure," she said. Her study, based upon work in traditional Igbo society, shows that societies without fixed gender positions exist.
"The term 'husband' has no gender in Igbo culture," Amadiume explained, which allows women to perform traditional "husband" roles, holding positions of political and economic power.
In her 1997 book "Reinventing Africa: Matriarchy, Religion, and Culture," Amadiume discussed the ways in which African societal structures subvert the classical sense of matriarchy.
Although "matriarchy" may, to some, connote societies in which women serve as queens, Amadiume found that in Igbo culture, matriarchy involves women's roles affecting both the political and economic power structures.
"The position of women in a kinship as mothers at the head of households is basic to the structure of matriarchy," said Amadiume, describing the extended argument of her study.
Amadiume's goals are to "begin to abstract from the monograph applied to the Igbo in 'Male Daughters' and bring it to wider theoretical application, in order to critique the expression of the state," she said.
At Dartmouth, Amadiume brings her perspective to bear not just on the courses she teaches, but also on the hiring of new professors and discourse within the department, according to Green.
"She raises questions about the extent to which an African perspective on Christianity will be incorporated in a new faculty member's work, for example," Green said.
Hired in 1993 and tenured soon after, Amadiume, who is cross-listed in the African and African-American Studies, Women's Studies and Religion departments, has taught classes of an interdisciplinary nature with students from a variety of academic backgrounds.
Although all of her classes are varied, from courses focused upon indigenous African religions to those scrutinizing writings of African and African-American women writers, Amadiume brings her field experience into all of her classes.
"In courses on women in African religions, available texts are limited, which brought me to draw a lot from my own field work and knowledge," she said. "Teaching and research are symbiotic."
