Molefi Kete Asante

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Molefi Kete Asante (born Arthur Lee Smith Jr. August 14, 1942, in Valdosta, Georgia, United States) is an African American scholar who has written more than 60 books and 300 scholarly articles. His 1998 book Afrocentricity generated the term Afrocentrism, a controversial branch of philosophy and basis for scholarly work. He is currently Professor of African American Studies at Temple University, where he created the world's first doctoral program in African American Studies in 1987.

He is the father of author-filmmaker-professor M.K. Asante Jr.

1 Education
2 Career
3 Filmography
4 External links

[edit] Education

Born in Valdosta, Georgia, one of sixteen children, he was originally named Arthur Lee Smith Jr. He changed his name to reflect his claim to be descended in part from the Asante people of West Africa. He received his B.A. from Oklahoma Christian College in 1964, his M.A. from Pepperdine University in 1965, and his Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles, in 1968, all in communication studies.

[edit] Career

He was appointed a full professor at the age of 30 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. In the distinguished academic career that followed, Asante published 61 scholarly books, more than 300 papers and articles, and directed more than 125 Ph.D. dissertations. He has published more scholarly books than any contemporary African author and has recently been recognized as one of the ten most widely cited African Americans. In addition, Black Issues in Higher Education recognized him as one of the most influential leaders in the last 15 years. Asante's greatest contribution is generally considered to be his theory of Afrocentricity, a re-examination of traditional scholarship from the perspective of African and African diasporal peoples and their interconnecteness with all the peoples of the world. In 1969, Asante became the founding editor of the Journal of Black Studies, a central publication for Afrocentric theory.

Asante's early contributions to the theory of cultural diversity in the 1970s and 1980s is not as widely known. However, he often states that his analytical approach is influenced by the work of the late Senegalese anthropologist Cheikh Anta Diop. Asante's work has won both accolades and criticism from around the world. He has been enstooled as a traditional king, Nana Okru Asante Peasah, Kyldomhene, in Tafo, Akyem, Ghana (1995), and was invited to address an African Union Conference of Intellectuals of Africa and the Diaspora at Dakar (2004).

[edit] Filmography

Asante starred in the multi-award winning documentary 500 Years Later (2005) staring Maulana Karenga, Muhammed Shareef, Francis Cress Welsin, Kimani Nehusi, Paul Robeson Jr , Nelson George, and many more. The film was written and produced by his son M.K. Asante, Jr.