Michael A. Gomez

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Michael A. Gomez (born 1955) is Silver Professor at New York University, noted for his work on West Africa, the African diaspora, Islam, and slavery.

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Education

Gomez began his BA at Amherst College, transferring to the University of Chicago, where he took all his subsequent degrees: a BA in US History (1981), an MA in African History (1982) and a PhD in African History (1985). [1]

Career

Gomez proceeded from his PhD to a position as assistant professor in the Department of History/African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis (1985–88). [1] In 1988 he moved to the Department of History at Spelman College, where he was Assistant Professor 1988–92 and Associate Professor 1992–97. [1] From 1997 to 1999 he was Professor in the Department of History/African American Studies at the University of Georgia, proceeding to the role of Professor in the Departments of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, [1] a position he still held as of 2024. He founded the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora and was its director from 2000 to 2007. [1] From 2017 he was also Silver Professor at New York University, taking up the position of director of the university's Center for the Study of Africa and the African Diaspora in 2018. [1]

Gomez's 2005 book Black Crescent was awarded the 2006 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Award in the non-fiction category, [1] while his 2018 book African Dominion won the 2019 African Studies Association Book Prize and the 2019 American Historical Association Martin A. Klein Prize in African History. [1] [2]

Major works

Gomez's single-author monographs are:

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<i>African Dominion</i>

African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa, by Michael A. Gomez, focuses on the regions surrounding the Middle Niger Valley. It can be thought of as tracing the rise and fall of empire as a form of local political organization in West Africa, culminating in the Songhay Empire; thus it primarily covers the millennium from the mid-sixth century to 1591 CE, when Songhay came under Moroccan rule. It has been particularly noted for using a wide range of non-European sources, particularly Arabic-language material, to develop a non-Eurocentric account of medieval West African history.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gomez, Michael A. (2020). "Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  2. Collet, Hadrien (2020). "Michael Gomez, African Dominion: a New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa". Cahiers de civilisation médiévale (250–251): 172–176. doi: 10.4000/ccm.5080 . ISSN   0007-9731.