The recent dramatic emergence of tropical Africa to the center stage of international affairs has raised African studies to a position of grave national concern. If the new African nations are faced with the problems of adjusting in all too short a time to the responsibilities and tasks of independence, we on our side are faced with equally grave problems in meeting our responsibilities to them. In diplomatic relations, business and industrial contacts, and education and technical assistance programs, our critical need now is for a detaile understanding of these diverse nations.

The earliest interest in Africa among institutions of higher education in the United States was probably that of denominational colleges which trained missionaries for Africa and other areas. But their motivation was to bring the fruits of Western civilization to non-Western areas, and this had no effect on the college curriculum of the nineteenth century. The missionary interest has continued in at least one major African studies program. The Hartford Seminary Foundation offers courses on missionary problems, African religions, and Christianity in Africa. It also teaches several African languages.

Northwestern University has had an interest in African anthropology which dates back to 1927. No available information, however, has revealed whether courses then offered included the study of Africa.

During World War II, there was an abortive attempt to organize an International Conference on Africa, and just after the war, an instructor at Colby Junior College included the study of African literature in an English course. The Carnegie Corporation aided the development of African studies by extending their grants for area studies to the African field, giving funds for fellowships and sending small groups of scholars to Africa for “look-see” tours. Superficial as these tours may have been, a number of their participants later became Africanists.

This bibliography is a revision of a mimeographed copy which I compiled several years ago and which has been circulated privately on request. Continued interest has now prompted me to revise and publish it here. It deals mainly with the Pastoral or “Rift Valley” Masai of both Kenya and Tanzania. But it also includes many important references to other Maa-speaking peoples--such as the Samburu and Njemps (Tiamus) of Kenya and the Arusha and Baraguyu of Tanzania--who are referred to variously in the early literature as the Wakwavi, Wahumba, or Iloikop or simply as the Agricultural Masai.

Although by no means exhaustive, the bibliography is designed to include all the major works dealing with the history, language, and traditional social, political, and economic life of the Pastoral Masai. Other important items, not included here, may be found in the following:

(1) Colonial Office Files, Public Record Office, London; (2) Secretariat Archives, Nairobi, Mombasa, and Dar es Salaam; and (3) Regional and Area Administrative Office Files, Kenya and Tanzania.

This listing of programs of African studies offered at American universities continues previous listings in thisBulletin, most recently in March 1962. Listings of programs have been standardized to include the following: a general outline of the program, degrees offered, staff and course offerings for 1963-64, and present enrollment in the program.

The editor welcomes additional information and will be happy to include it in a subsequent issue of theBulletin.

The African Area Studies Program of American University is built around a core program of courses and seminars in The School of International Service, and is coordinated with specialized courses in the departments of international relations and organizations, sociology and anthropology, earth sciences, economics, history, languages and linguistics, and the school of government and public administration. Other cooperating groups include the Center of Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, the Business Council in International Understanding, the Church Mission and the International Labor Program.

An integrated Seminar on Africa headed by Darrell Randall, director of the program, includes a program in history, cultural analysis, and social, economic and political development. Courses on Africa offered include Introduction to Africa, Economic Problems, Geography of Africa, History of Africa, Problems of Contemporary Africa, Labor in Africa, Government and Politics in Modern Africa, Culture Area Analysis: Africa South of the Sahara, and Seminar in Population Studies. A United Nations Seminar on African Affairs is scheduled as part of the integrated seminar, and an advanced seminar is offered for students who have done research in Africa.

The Archives-Libraries Committee of the African Studies Association, in accordance with tradition, held its annual meeting in New York prior to the annual meeting of the Association, on November 1, 1967. This report reviews some of the most important points discussed at that meeting, and attempts to assess some of the achievements of the year 1967.

The Committee continues to enjoy a particularly happy relationship with the African Section of the Library of Congress. Dr. Julian W. Witherell, the present Head, was on tour in Africa in November, so that the Acting Head, Dr. Samir M. Zoghby, submitted a detailed report to the Committee in his place. Since the African Section of the Library of Congress was established as the result of representations made by the A.S.A., it seems appropriate to mention, and so to bring to the attention of the Board in this way, some of the most significant developments in the Section.

The program of compiling and publishing guides to official publications of African countries is being continued. Volumes dealing with French-speaking West Africa, and the overseas provinces of Portugal in Africa will be published very shortly. A similar volume for Ghana is in preparation, and plans are being formulated to provide guides to the official publications of the Congo, Liberia, Ethiopia, the former High Commission territories, and Spanish Africa. It is hoped in time to prepare a special volume dealing with United States official publications concerning Africa.

The African Studies Association of the United Kingdom held its first Conference at the University of Birmingham from 14 to 17 September, 1964, when about a hundred members came together with a number of guests and observers, including representatives of the African Studies Association of the United States, the Africa-Studiecentrum of the Netherlands, the Scandinavian African Institute, and the German Afrika Gesellschaft. Most of those attending the Conference were accommodated at University House.

The Conference opened on the evening of 14 September with a speech of welcome by the Vice-Chancellor of Birmingham University, Sir Robert Aitken, and a Presidential Address by Dr. Margery Perham, C.B.E., President of the Association.

With rare and only partial exceptions, research and teaching institutions and individual scholars in these countries welcome the prospect of an increase in the frequency, range, and quality of research by American students of Africa and of greater coordination between them and scholars in Africa. Each government in principle also welcomes researchers who are intellectually, personally, and politically respected and whose projects are thought to be broadly relevant, or at least not antithetical to, the needs of the society. Despite the resemblance among countries in these general respects, each presents a unique cluster of opportunities, research settings, and problems which will be discussed in this report.

The information for this study was collected over a period of six weeks during the summer of 1968. Periods of one week were spent in Khartoum and Addis Ababa and of four weeks in South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland. Twenty-three interviews were conducted in Khartoum, twenty-two in Addis Ababa, and fifty-five in southern Africa, including thirteen in Lesotho and Swaziland. Eight of the eleven universities and three of the five university colleges in South Africa were visited. 150 people participated in the interviews. Of these eighty percent were in academic occupation such as university teachers/researchers or administrators, and twenty percent were in government posts (including a few officers in American embassies or consulates), international organizations, or private organizations engaged in or concerned with research.