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Karin Barber is a renowned Africanist anthropologist whose work primarily focuses on anthropology texts, oral performance, popular culture, and religion, with a core regional specialization in Yoruba from Western Nigeria. She holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Cambridge and University College London, and she undertook her PhD at the University of Ifẹ (now Ọbafẹmi Awolọwọ University), Nigeria. Her early research highlighted the social significance of praise poetry, based on extensive fieldwork in a small Yoruba town. Barber has also performed with a Yoruba popular theatre troupe and served as a lecturer in the Department of African Languages and Literatures at Ifẹ. Her recent research includes an archival project on early Yoruba print culture, exploring the emergence and experimentation of genres that shaped new publics in Lagos. Her impressive body of work includes "Anthropology Texts, Persons, Publics" (2007) and "History of African Popular Culture" (2018), both of which delve into the comparative, interdisciplinary exploration of popular genres over the last 400 years across the continent. Throughout her career, Barber has taught extensively in Nigeria and has been actively involved with the British Academy, being elected as a Fellow in 2003 and serving as Vice-President from 2008 to 2010.
London School of Economics • London
Visiting Professor focused on Africanist anthropology, oral performance, and cultural studies.
Department of Economics