Professor Dr. Rhiannon Stephens

Biography

Rhiannon Stephens specializes in the history of precolonial and early colonial East Africa from the millennium CE to the twentieth century. She is the author of 'Poverty and Wealth in East Africa: A Conceptual History' (Duke University Press, 2022), which presents an interdisciplinary history of the perceptions of wealth and poverty over the past thousand years among the people living in eastern Uganda. Her monograph 'History of African Motherhood: A Case Study of Uganda, 700-1900' (Cambridge University Press, 2013) traced the social institution and ideology of motherhood in response to political, economic, and social changes in Uganda. She co-edited 'Conceptual History in Africa' (Berghahn Books, 2018), which critically examines the methodologies of writing conceptual history on the continent. Rhiannon’s current research includes a collaborative project examining gender, power, and climate over fifteen hundred years along the east coast of Africa. Her work has been published in premier journals including the American Historical Review, Journal of African History, Past & Present, and African Studies Review. Since joining Columbia in 2011, she has held various leadership roles in academic committees and has been recognized for her exceptional teaching with the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award in 2019-20.

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