Emeritus Professor Roland Oliver
Emeritus Professor Roland Oliver was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from SOAS in 1992, in honour of his academic career at the School. Following his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge, Professor Oliver joined SOAS where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor until his retirement in 1986. He also founded The African History Seminar at the School which made SOAS the most important venue in the world for the advancement of African history as an academic discipline.
Professor Oliver has travelled extensively in Africa and organised many international conferences on African history and archaeology. In 1963 he carried out a survey of 250 working Africanist academics in the UK which led to the founding of the African Studies Association.
Professor Oliver has been visiting professor at the University of Brussels, Northwestern University and Harvard University. He was also President of the British Institute in Eastern Africa and founding Editor of both the Journal of African History and the Cambridge History of Africa.
He has been the Honorary Vice President at the Royal Africa Society since 1965. In 1989 Professor Oliver was awarded the Distinguished Africanist Award of the American African Studies Association and has also been elected a Fellow of The British Academy.
