Jan Vansina

Jan Vansina
Born(1929-09-14)14 September 1929
Antwerp, Belgium
Died8 February 2017(2017-02-08) (aged 87)
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.
Alma materCatholic University of Leuven
Scientific career
FieldsAfrican history
InstitutionsUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison
Doctoral studentsDavid Newbury

Jan M. J. Vansina (14 September 1929 – 8 February 2017)[1] was a Belgian historian and anthropologist regarded as an authority on the history of Central Africa, especially of what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. He was a major innovator in the historical methodology of oral tradition. As a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he taught several generations of students and, according to a biographer, "set the pace in African historical studies from the 1950s into the 1990s."[2]

  1. ^ "Trailblazing African History Scholar Jan Vansina Passes Away". 13 February 2017.
  2. ^ Joseph C. Miller, "Vansina, Jan," in Kelly Boyd., ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, vol 2. Taylor & Francis. pp. 1252–53. ISBN 9781884964336.