Karin Barber

Barber was born on 2 July 1949 to Charles and Barbara Barber.[1] She was educated at Lawnswood High School, an all-girls state grammar school in Lawnswood, Leeds.[1] She studied English at Girton College, Cambridge, and graduated with a first class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree; as per tradition, her BA was promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Cantab).[1][2]

Barber then changed direction and studied social anthropology at University College London, completing a graduate diploma.[1] She then undertook postgraduate research at the University of Ife in Nigeria, where she completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree.[1][2] Her research concerned the "role of oral poetic performance in everyday life" in Okuku, Osun State, Nigeria.[2]

From 1977 to 1984, Barber was a lecturer in the Department of African Languages and Literature at the University of Ife in Nigeria.[1] Yoruba, which she had learnt during her doctorate, was used as the medium of instruction.[2][3] In 1985, she moved back to the United Kingdom and joined the Centre of West African Studies of the University of Birmingham.[1] She was a lecturer from 1985 to 1993, a senior lecturer from 1993 to 1997, and then Reader from 1997 to 1999.[1] From 1998 to 2001, she served as Director of the Centre of West African Studies.[1] In 1999, she was appointed Professor of African Cultural Anthropology.[1][4] She retired from Birmingham in 2017, and was appointed professor emeritus.[5] Since 2018, she has been Centennial Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.[6]

In addition to her full-time academic positions, Barber has held a number of visiting appointments. For the 1993/1994 academic year she was Preceptor of the Institute of Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities at Northwestern University in Illinois, United States.[2] In 1999, she was Melville Herskovits Distinguished Visiting Professor at Northwestern University.[7] In 2014, she was the Mellon Foundation Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.[2]

Barber has held senior positions with the British Academy, the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. She was a member of the council from 2007 to 2008, and was its Vice-President (Humanities) from 2008 to 2010.[2][4]

Barber's partner is Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias.[1] He is a historian of medieval West Africa.[8]

In 2003, Barber was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[4] She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to African studies[9] and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to the study of African culture.[10]

In 1991, Barber was awarded the "Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology" by the Royal Anthropological Institute for I Could Speak Until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women and the Past in a Yoruba Town, her first book.[11] In 2001, she was awarded the "Melville J. Herskovits Award" by the African Studies Association for The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theatre.[12] In 2009, she was awarded the "Susanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form" by the Media Ecology Association for The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics.[13] In 2013, she was awarded the "Paul Hair Prize" by the African Studies Association for Print Culture and the First Yoruba Novel.[14]

• Barber, Karin (1985). Yorùbá Dùn ún So: a beginners' course in Yorùbá (1st ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300029581.
• Barber, Karin; De Moraes Farias, P. F., eds. (1989). Discourse and its Disguises: the Interpretation of African Oral Texts. Birmingham: Birmingham University African Studies Series. ISBN 978-0704410428.
• Barber, Karin; De Moraes Farias, P. F., eds. (1990). Self-assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa. Birmingham: Birmingham University African Studies Series. ISBN 978-0704410961.
• Barber, Karin (1991). I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women, and the Past in a Yoruba Town. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. ISBN 978-1560980438.
• Barber, Karin; Collins, John; Ricard, Alain (1997). West African popular theatre. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0852552452.
• Barber, Karin, ed. (1997). Readings in African popular culture. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253332943.
• Barber, Karin (2000). The Generation of Plays: Yoruba Popular Life in Theater. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253338075.
• Barber, Karin (2000). Yorùbá Dùn ún So: A Beginners' Course in Yorùbá (Part 2). Ibadan: New Horn Press. ISBN 978-2266329.
• Barber, Karin, ed. (2006). Africa's hidden histories: everyday literacy and making the self. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253347299.
• Barber, Karin (2007). The Anthropology of Texts, Persons and Publics: Oral and Written Culture in Africa and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521837873.
• Barber, Karin, ed. (2012). Print culture and the first Yoruba novel: I.B. Thomas's 'Life story of me, Sẹgilọla' and other texts. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-9004229150.