Prof. Ismail Rashid

Professor Ismail Rashid grew up in Freetown, Sierra Leone and has been teaching at Vassar College since 1998. He received his B.A. Hons in Classics and History from the University of Ghana, M.A in Race Relations from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Canada and Ph.D in African History from McGill University. His primary teaching interests are precolonial and modern African history, African Diaspora and Pan-Africanism, and International Relations. His research interests include subaltern resistance against colonialism, and conflicts and security in contemporary Africa.

Among his recent publications are: West Africa’s Security Challenges (2004) (co-edited with A. Adebajo), “Epidemics and Resistance in Sierra Leone During the First World War,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, Vol 45, No 3, 2011, 415-439; “Religious Militancy and Violence in West Africa: A Study of Islam in Sierra Leone,” (co-author Kevin O’Brien,” in James Gow, Funmi Olonisakin, Ernst Dijxhorn, Militancy and Violence in West Africa: Religion, Politics and Radicalization, London: Routledge, 2013, The Paradox of History and Memory in Postcolonial Sierra Leone (2013)(co-edited with Sylvia Ojukutu-Macauley).