In the years following World War II, women’s organizations in Nigeria became central to a new political vision of the obligations and responsibilities of citizenship, as well as a way for women to define their wants and needs, according to Judith A. Byfield, professor of history. In a live, hybrid Chats in the Stacks book talk Byfield will discuss The Great Upheaval: Women and Nation in Postwar Nigeria (Ohio University Press, 2021) and the period’s dynamic political engagement to illuminate the centrality of gender to the study of nationalism, and offer new lines of inquiry into the late colonial era and its consequences for the future of the Nigerian state.

The Great Upheaval was the 2022 recipient of the Martin A. Klein Prize given by the American Historical Association in recognition of the most distinguished work of scholarship on African history published in English during the previous calendar year.

This book talk is hosted by Olin Library.