Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí

Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí is a Professor of Sociology specializing in Gender, Knowledge, and Culture at Stony Brook University. A scholar of Nigerian origin, her research spans (post)colonial studies, modernities, and African studies. Her seminal work, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997), has had a profound impact on fields such as sociology, (cultural) anthropology, decolonial theory, and African, cultural, and gender studies. Her writings are widely studied in humanities and social sciences courses, including in the Netherlands. In 2021, she was honored with the prestigious Africanist Award by the African Studies Association, and recently, she co-edited Naming Africans: On the Epistemic Value of Names (2023), a volume that explores the idea that personal names serve as rich sources of historical and cultural insight, revealing layers of hidden knowledge.