International records / OpenAlex research

The Crisis in Area Programs: A Time for Innovation

This paper had its genesis in the soul-searching of the now-famous Montreal ASA annual meeting of 1969 and in constructive discussions at the Boston annual meeting of 1970. At the latter meeting, I chaired a panel discussion (under the rubric of “New Directions in Area Programs”) in which a troublesome topic was ably probed by Olu Fadahunsi of Nigeria, John Povey, and Rodger Yeager. Their insights, together with those of others, are here brought to bear on the very real crisis which confronts so-called area studies programs in general and so-called African studies programs in particular. As Gr…