Dr. Molefi Kete Asante is known for developing the method of Afrocentricity, a theory that emphasizes African culture and history from an African-centered perspective. Asante is a professor and former chair of the Department of Africology at Temple University, where he founded the PhD program in African-American Studies, and is the founding editor of the Journal of Black Studies. He is also the founder and president of the Molefi Kete Asante Institute.
Asante has been recognized as one of the ten most widely cited African Americans, with over 100 published books. In the 1990s, Black Issues in Higher Education recognized him as one of the most influential leaders of the decade. Dr. Molefi Kete Asante graduated from Oklahoma Christian College in l964. He entered Pepperdine soon afterwards, and completed his M.A. at Pepperdine University in l965. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA at the age of 26 in l968 and was appointed a full professor at the age of 30 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He chaired the Communication Department at SUNY-Buffalo from l973-1980. He worked in Zimbabwe as a trainer of journalists from l980 to l982. In the Fall of l984, Dr. Asante became chair of the African American Studies Program at Temple University, where he created the first Ph.D. Program in African American Studies in 1987. He has directed more than 140 Ph.D. dissertations. He has written over 500 articles and essays for various journals, books, and magazines, and is the founder of the theory of Afrocentrism. Universal Write Publications is the pioneering social science press instrumental in a historic and legacy-making partnership, having published 15 of Dr. Molefi Kete Asante’s titles.
Dr. Molefi Kete Asante is the most published contemporary African American author. He has become the seminal theoretician of Afrocentric infusion into the curriculum, examining and advancing the agency-centered ideological position in the realm of education, culture, and science. Widely read and consulted, Dr. Asante and his books have inspired educators in the United States, South Africa, Nigeria, Canada, and Brazil.
