EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: Dr. Arthur Abraham studied history and anthropology and obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in History/African Studies from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom (U.K.). He has numerous years of teaching and research experience at universities in Europe, the United States and Africa. He was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Afrikastudiecentrum in Leiden, Holland and a Fulbright-Hays Scholar in the U.S. Dr. Abraham has broad experience in the academy having been Chair of African Studies and both Director of the Institute of African Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Sierra Leone. He has also been UN Associate and Professor in the University Honors Program at Long Island University as well as Fellow at the Gilder Lehrman Centre for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition and Visiting Full Professor of History at Yale University. Dr. Abraham is a peer reviewer for several notable publishers and academic journals including Cambridge, Pearson, Palgrave, African Studies Review, Canadian Journal of African Studies, African Security Review, International Journal of African Historical Studies, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review. He has published over a dozen books and monographs, over eighty articles, and authored a large number of consultancy reports and unpublished manuscripts/presentations covering a broad range of historical, political, anthropological, developmental, educational, and cultural issues and topics. His latest book is An Introduction to the Pre-colonial History of the Mende of Sierra Leone (The Edwin Mellen Press, 2003) which draws heavily on multi-disciplinary approaches in reconstructing the past. In addition to his university responsibilities, Professor Abraham served as a development consultant for over a decade, heading two large projects in the Health and Agricultural sectors. He has been a primary consultant for two movies relating to Africa: The ‘Amistad’ (1998) and ‘Blood Diamonds’ (2005). In 2000 and 2001, he was the official guest of the British government to participate in planning and mapping out a twenty-year British policy towards Africa. He is currently working with a South African based group to make a twelve part TV series on the Atlantic Slave Trade and continuing research for a book that fundamentally reinterpretes modern African history. FIELDS OF TEACHING INTEREST: Civilizations and History (World and Africa surveys), West Africa and The Slave Trade and the Atlantic World. AREAS OF RESEARCH INTEREST: Governance in Africa (including chieftaincy and local government) Current developments in Africa (including civil wars and Islamic extremism), Mende and Loko History, Gullah History and Slavery and the History of the Amistad.
