Berkley Center

Gwendolyn Mikell is Professor of Anthropology and Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where she has taught since 1976. She served as African Studies Program Director in Georgetown's School of Foreign Service from 1996 to 2007 and was chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology from 1992 to 1995. Mikell also taught a class supported through the Berkley Center's Doyle Seminars project. She was Senior Fellow for African Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2000 to 2003. Mikell’s research interests are in African political and economic transitions, democratization and peace, African feminism, and the political/religious dynamics of African women’s organizations. She is the author of numerous articles and two books: Cocoa and Chaos in Ghana (1982, 2005) and African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa (1997). She holds a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, a Certificate in French from the National University of Cote d’Ivoire, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Columbia University.