Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali, Ph.D.

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Professor Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali holds a Master Degree in African Studies from the University of Bordeaux III and the Institute of Political Sciences at the University of Bordeaux I, France, a PhD in African History from the Paris VII University -Denis Diderot, France. He is a Specialist of Lusophone and Central African History, and has published a two-volume study in Portuguese on Angola’s Anti-colonial Liberation Movement Dissidências e Poder de Estado: O MPLA perante si próprio 1962-1977, Lisbon/Luanda, Caminho/Nzila, 2001: Volume I: 1962-1974, 473 p. Volume II: 1974-1977, 380 p. and a book in French on National Identity and Political Transitions in Africa, Barbares et Citoyens – L’ Identité Nationale à l’ Épreuve des Transitions Africaines – Congo-Brazzaville, Angola; Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005, 336.p). He is also the author of several articles on social and political issues that affect Angola and Congo, which have been published in French, Portuguese and Angolan Academic Reviews.

Professor Mabeko-Tali has been teaching African History at Howard University since the Fall Semester of 2002. Prior to that, he taught at the Angolan State University, in Luanda, in the Republic of Angola, and in France as Visiting Professor and Researcher at the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales”, and “Maison des Sciences de l’Homme”, in Paris.

He is a founding member of the French Academic review “LUSOTOPIE” (Center for Black Africa Studies, Paris/Bordeaux, France) in 1994, in which he has published several articles. Professor Mabeko-Tali is also a founding member of the College of Literature and Social Sciences (Faculdade de Letras e Ciências Socias) of “Agostinho Neto” State University in Angola. He is a board member of Journal of Higher Education published by the African Union’s Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), based in Dakar, Senegal and a founding member and the Scientific Director of the Angolan “Centro de Estudos Sociais e Desenvolvimento” (CESD – Center for Social and Development Studies) and Editor of its review “Caderno de Estudos Sociais” (Social Studies Notebook).

From 1999 to 2002, he served as Diplomatic Counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Congo in Angola.

Professor Mabeko-Tali speaks and writes several languages, including four European languages —French, Portuguese, Spanish and English— and two African languages —Lingala, spoken in both Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his native language Linyellé, from Northern Congo.

Additionally, Professor Mabeko-Tali has published two novels in French, both of which are inspired by contemporary social and political realities of the Republic of Congo.

In 2009, Professor Jean-Michel Mabeko-Tali was nominated member of UNESCO International Scientific Committee for the Pedagogical Use of the General History of Africa. The first phase of this project, completed in 1999, consisted of rewriting the history of the African continent. Published in eight volumes, as well as in an abridged version, and translated into thirteen languages, the General History of Africa represents the efforts of some 350 African and world specialists over 35 years.