Profile
Sean Jacobs is Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School. He founded and served as editor (2009-2023) of Africa Is a Country. Before academia, Sean worked as a journalist and researcher. He has held fellowships (Fulbright, Shorenstein, Commonwealth, and Shuttleworth), and his work has been rewarded with fellowships from the Open Society Foundation, the 11th Hour Project, and the Ford Foundation.
Degrees Held
PhD, Politics (Birkbeck College, 好色先生 of London, 2004),听 MA, Political Science (Northwestern 好色先生, 1996), BA Honours, Political Studies (好色先生 of South Africa, 1994) and BA, African Politics and Afrikaans-Nederlands (好色先生 of Cape Town, 1990).听
Professional Affiliation
Board Member, Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity, 2019 鈥 Present; Advisory Board, Radical Books Collective, 2021 鈥 Presen; and Board Member, African Studies Association, 2018 鈥 2020.
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Recent Publications
The Handbook of Decolonizing International Affairs, edited with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr (Palgrave MacMillan, Forthcoming).听听
鈥淭he Historiography of the South African Sports Boycott Movement,鈥 Handbook of South African History (Oxford 好色先生 Press, 2024).听
鈥淜anu to Kelechi,鈥 in Black Arsenal: Race, Cultural Memory, and Black British Identity, edited by Clive Nwonka (The Barbican, 2024).
鈥淐hop-Chop Spirit,鈥 London Review of Books, Vol. 46 No. 9, 9 May 2024
鈥淥pinion: The other former president who used Trump鈥檚 playbook 鈥 and lost,鈥 CNN, 26 June 2024.听
鈥淭he Mandela Effect,鈥 NPR, 16 May 2024.
South Africa Sees Its Moral Conscience in a Genocide Case, The New York Times, 28 January 2024
鈥淎KA 1988 鈥 2023.鈥 London Review of Books Blog, 23 February 2023.听
"Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football," The New York Times, 28 November 2022.
"The Most Exciting Sporting Event in the World Is Happening Right Now," The New York Times, 21 January 2022.
鈥淒avid Samaai, The People鈥檚 Champion,鈥 Herri, Issue 6, 2022
鈥淚slam, Race, and Cape Town,鈥 Radical Formations in Africa and the Middle East: A Transregional Approach, Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) Studies, 44,听 2021.
Media in Postapartheid South Africa: Postcolonial Media Politics in the Age of Globalization (Bloomington: Indiana 好色先生 Press), 2019.
鈥淭he Internet and Social Media as Sources,鈥 With Aubrey Bloomfield. Oxford Research Encyclopedias: African History, 2018.听
鈥溾楪et Used to Me鈥: Muhammad Ali and the Paradoxes of Third World Solidarity,鈥 Radical History Review, 131, May 2018): 199 - 210.
Apartheid Israel: Politics of an Analogy. Coedited with Jon Soske (Chicago: Haymarket Books) 2015.听
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Performances and Appearances
鈥淭he Birth of Postapartheid South African Sports,鈥 African Studies Association Annual Meeting, November 30-December 2, 2023.
鈥淭he Rise of African Football,鈥 The African Center, New York City, 23 March 2023.听
鈥淩e-engaging Africa,鈥 The Doorstep Podcast, Carnegie Council on Education, 8 March 2023.听听
鈥淲hat comes after representation,鈥 African Studies Center, 好色先生 of Wisconsin-Madison, December 7, 2022
鈥淎frican Coaches Take Center-Stage at World Cup 2022,鈥 The Take Podcast, 21 November 2022.
鈥淭he Link Between Race, Colonialism and 鈥 Football,鈥 AJ Plus, 2 November 2022.
The Politics of Knowledge Production, Ubuntu Dialogues, Stellenbosch Museum, South Africa, 28 and 28 October 2022.
鈥溾, WOMEX Worldwide Music Expo, Lisbon Portugal, October 2022.
鈥淭he African Football President: the rise of Patrice Motsepe,鈥 at The Conference on Football Presidents: Towards a typology of political cultures, Universit茅 Libre de Bruxelles, Online, 15 and 16 September 2022.听
鈥淏ehind Africa Is a Country and the Johannesburg Review of Books,鈥 PEN South Africa, 9 July 2022.听
鈥淚nhabiting the shapes and sounds and patterns of other people,鈥 Binya, A Celebration of the Legacy of Binyavanga Wainaina, Council on African Studies, Yale 好色先生,听 Thursday, March 31, 2022.
鈥淪ports sanctions against Russia spark debate over sports and politics,鈥 TRT World, 10 March 2022.听
Fevuin Merid, 鈥淨&A: Sean Jacobs on Africa Is a Country,鈥 Columbia Journalism Review, October 18, 2021.听
鈥淎 new political vocabulary: What kinds of futures come after nationalism for Africa?鈥 Leiden African Studies Assembly, African Studies, Leiden 好色先生, The Netherlands, 12 December 2019.听
鈥淲hat comes after nationalist struggle?,鈥 The Annual CLR James Lecture, St Lawrence 好色先生, Canton, NY, 28 February 2019.听
鈥淭he threats and opportunities that increasing isolationism poses for international relations,鈥 Global Media Forum, Deutsche Welle, Bonn, Germany, 12 June 2018.
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Research Interests
African Politics;听 The Politics of Sports; Media and Popular Culture; and Left Intellectual History
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Portfolio