Kenda Mutongi at Williams College Recognized by African Studies Association
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. - Professor of History and Chair of Africana Studies Kenda Mutongi was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2008 Melville J. Herskovits Award competition from the African Studies Association (ASA) for her book titled "Worries of the Heart: Widows, Family, and Community in Kenya" (University of Chicago Press, 2007). The award was made at the ASA's annual meeting in Chicago.The award honors annually the most important scholarly works in African studies published in English during the preceding year. The award is named after the founder of the ASA, Melville J. Herskovits, an American anthropologist important in the inception of Africana studies in American academia.
Mutongi's book surveys a century of Kenyan history from the perspective of ordinary people in western Kenya. She uses the condition of widowhood as a lens through which to observe the history of colonialism, Christianity, independence movements, gender relations, urban migration, proletarianization, corruption, domesticity, nation-building, and much else besides, even memories of the slave trade.
In announcing the award, the ASA wrote, "The author never loses sight of the realities of the lives of the people about whom she writes, and she writes about them with an intimacy and sense of connection coupled with an admirable analytical detachment. …The book is an exemplary work of historical ethnography."
Mutongi has also published articles in Journal of African History, Africa, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Signs, and African Studies Review. She is currently working on a book tentatively titled "Coming for to Carry Me Home: Commuters and Transport Culture in Nairobi."
At Williams since 1996, Mutongi's research focuses on East Africa, urban history, and transport history and culture. She teaches courses on African political thought, the South African Apartheid, gender and society in Modern Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa since 1800.
In addition to being a member of the Williams faculty, Mutongi has also been a member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.
She received her B.A. from Coe College in 1989 and her Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia in 1996.
