Alicia Decker

Professional Bio

Alicia C. Decker is an associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies, as well as co-director of the African Feminist Initiative at Penn State (with Gabeba Baderoon and Maha Marouan). She earned her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from Emory University in 2007. She also has two master’s degrees—one in Women’s Studies from Emory and another in Gender Studies from Makerere University in Uganda a BA in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Decker is the author of In Idi Amin’s Shadow: Women, Gender, and Militarism in Uganda (Ohio University Press, 2014), and co-author with Andrea Arrington of Africanizing Democracies: 1980-Present (Oxford University Press, 2015). In 2018, she co-edited a special issue of Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism on “African Feminisms: Cartographies for the 21st Century” with Gabeba Baderoon. Her scholarly articles have appeared in the International Journal of African Historical Studies, Women’s History Review, Journal of Eastern African Studies, History Teacher, Afriche e Orienti, Feminist Studies, Journal of African Military History, and Meridians, as well as various edited book collections. Decker is co-editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Women’s History (forthcoming 2020) and serves on the editorial board at the Journal of African Military History. With Giacomo Macola, she co-edits a book series on African Military History for Ohio University Press.