International Conference Commemorating the Bicentenary of Fourah Bay College (1827 – 2027)

Title:

Fourah Bay College at 200: Reclaiming the Past and Reimagining the Future of Higher Education in Sierra Leone, Africa, and beyond.

Description

In 2027, Fourah Bay College (FBC)—now a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone and West Africa’s oldest Western-style institution of higher learning—will mark the bicentenary of its founding. Established in 1827, the college has long held a singular place in the intellectual, cultural, and political history of Sierra Leone, West Africa, and Africa. It educated generations of scholars, professionals, clergy, administrators, scientists, teachers, and public intellectuals whose influence extended far beyond the country’s borders. While the college continues to hold symbolic and historic significance as one of the major centres of learning in Africa, the approach of the bicentenary reveals an ugly truth: it coincides with a moment of unsettling crisis and uncertain transformation. Across Sierra Leone and in many parts of Africa, the systems, institutions, and cultures of higher education are facing considerable challenges. The bicentenary conference provides an opportunity to have serious conversations not only about the historical significance and legacy of Fourah Bay College, but also about the role, nature, and trajectories of higher education, intellectual production, and the role of the social sciences and humanities in Sierra Leone and Africa more broadly. 

Conference Themes

We invite proposals for panels, roundtables, workshops, and individual papers from scholars who are working on and interested in the broad objectives and key themes of the conference, which include, but are not limited to:

    • Fourah Bay College and the history of universities in Africa.

    • ‘The Athens of West Africa’: myth, comparison, and the intellectual pitfalls.

    • Nineteenth-century knowledge production at FBC: language, theology, science, and empire.

    • Lost journals, Dysfunctional archives, and the decline of scholarly publishing in post-colonial Sierra Leone and Africa.

    • The political economy of higher education in Africa.

    • Donor regimes, global rankings, and the governance of universities.

    • Knowledge hierarchies, epistemic dependency, and intellectual sovereignty.

    • African universities in the global division of scholarly labour.

    • The future of the social sciences and humanities in Africa.

    • Historical scholarship, collective memory, and civic education.

    • Science, engineering, and laboratory-based research in resource-constrained settings.

    • Medical, health, and environmental sciences in African contexts.

    • Digital transformation of African universities.

    • Artificial intelligence, data science, and algorithmic governance.

    • Ethics, technology, and African futures.

    • Open science, digital publishing, and knowledge access.

    • Teaching, curriculum reform, and decolonising knowledge.

    • Training and mentoring the next generation of African scholars and scientists.

    • Graduate education, research capacity, and institutional sustainability.

    • Colonialism, Atlantic slavery, and reparative justice.

    • Africa and the African diaspora in global reparations debates.

    • Universities, archives, and reparations discourse.

    • Reparations, development, debt, climate justice, and global political economy.

    • Atlantic Slavery and Black Atlantic Modernity: Haiti, Sierra Leone, and Liberia

Proposals

Individual Submissions:
Individual paper proposals should include a 250-word abstract, a short bio, and the contact information of the presenters. Please do not submit more than one abstract or abstracts with more than two presenters. Submit your proposal here: 

Group Submission: 
Panel, roundtable, and workshop proposals should include a 250-word abstract and the email and phone contacts for all panellists. Those interested in proposing panels, roundtables and workshops should contact the Bicentenary Conference Sub-Committee Chair at info@fbc200.org before submitting their proposals. Submit your proposal here: 

The deadline for submission is Friday, 31 July 2026. 

Notification of acceptance of proposals/abstracts will be sent out by Monday, 31 August 2026. 

If you have any questions about the conference, please contact us at info@fbc200.org


Registration Fee:
Local: Le. 500; International: US$100. All participants listed on a proposal should pre-register by paying the registration fee after their abstracts are accepted.

SUBMISSIONS