Ousseina D. Alidou is Distinguished Professor of Humane Letters, School of Arts and Sciences-Rutgers University. She teaches in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literature at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. She received a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

at the Université Abdou Moumouni in

Niamey Niamey () is the capital and largest city of Niger. As the Niamey Urban Community (, CUN), it is a Regions of Niger, first-level division of Niger, surrounded by the Tillabéri Region, in the western part of the country. Niamey lies on the Nige ...

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

, and a MA degree in

applied linguistics Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field which identifies, investigates, and offers solutions to language-related real-life problems. Some of the academic fields related to applied linguistics are education, psychology, Communication stu ...

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

where she also obtained a theoretical linguistics

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

. She was a member of the

Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa The Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) was an organisation set up in light of the struggles in the universities consequent to the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP). The organisation was founded by Silvia Feder ...

and the 2022 president of the

African Studies Association The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North ...

. Her twin sister

Hassana Alidou Hassana Alidou (29 March 1963 − 10 June 2023) was a Nigerien diplomat who served as Ambassador to the United States and Canada from 2015 to 2019. She then became the first scholar in residence for the Union Institute and University Institute fo ...

was Niger's ambassador to the United States from 2015 to 2019.

Awards

* 2006

Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence * 2007 Runner-up, Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize, Women's Caucus of the African Studies Association for ''Engaging Modernity'' * 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award of the

Africa-America Institute The Africa-America Institute (AAI) is an international education organization dedicated to advancing the continent's development through higher education and skills training, convening activities, and promoting greater engagement between Africa and ...

* 2015 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Award

Publications

Alidou published many scholarly articles and books including: * ''A Thousand Flowers: Social struggles against structural adjustment in African universities'', co-edited with

Silvia Federici Silvia Federici (; born 1942) is an Italian-American scholar, teacher, and Marxist feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science prof ...

and

George Caffentzis __NOTOC__ George Caffentzis (born 1945) is an American political philosopher and an autonomist Marxist. He founded the Midnight Notes Collective, is a founder member of the co-ordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa and a profes ...

, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2000 * ''Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger'', Madison:

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a Non-profit organization, non-profit university press publishing Peer review, peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic comm ...

, 2005. * ''Muslim Women in Postcolonial Kenya: Leadership, Representation, and Social Change'', Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. * ''Protest Arts, Gender, and Social Change: Fiction, Popular Songs, and the Media in Hausa Society across Borders'', University of Michigan Press, 2024.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alidou, Ousseina 1963 births Nigerien women academics Nigerien activists Nigerien women activists Living people Indiana University Bloomington alumni Nigerien academics Nigerien Africanists Rutgers University faculty Presidents of the African Studies Association Nigerien twins