Oakland, CA–February 5, 2008. International feminist scholar and activist Amina Mama has joined U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) to teach a seven-week course called Real Policy, Real Politics at Mills College.

After an international search, Mama was selected as the first Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership for the three-year appointment. The British-born Nigerian brings to Mills more than 20 years of experience as a professor, scholar, and activist in a wide range of distinguished European and African contexts, most recently serving as the chair in gender studies at the University of Cape Town's African Gender Institute in South Africa.

"This is a defining moment in the U.S.," said Lee, a Mills alumna Class of ‘73, whose political experience began in Oakland in the early 1970s when she was president of Mills' Black Student Union. "An African American man and a woman are running for president. Their campaigns change the entire landscape of political possibility. They surface real world issues that this Mills class is exploring—race and gender—issues that are often swept under the rug," she said. "This class couldn't be more timely."

The Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership is an endowed position honoring Lee for her leadership in human rights and social justice. In addition to teaching and mentoring students, appointees lead scholarly seminars on emerging social issues, and expand Mills' discussions on community, national, and international affairs.

Mama said her class, which meets every Saturday through March 8, will examine how race, gender, and class play a role in American politics, and explore women's contributions to politics and policy.

"Women have long understood that entering politics was the main way they could initiate social transformation," she said. "However, women pursue it in many different ways. In the U.S., Condoleeza Rice, for example, participates in politics in a deeply patriarchal structure."

As an activist scholar, Mama intends to "take the class beyond academic thinking and into the actual arena where politics is made and where people's lives are affected by it." To understand real politics, Mama said, Mills students and Americans in general, must look beyond the U.S. borders to where and how American politics affect the rest of the world, particularly in Africa. She said that American policies create an echo effect around the world—what's valued and implemented in the U.S.—is also implemented elsewhere.

"What African women experience, for example, is in many ways a reverberated effect of American policies," she said. Therefore her students will delve into topics such as gender and poverty, HIV/AIDS in the U.S. and Africa, and gender and militarism, areas where U.S. politics have strong effects in Africa.

For Mills students, the Real Policy, Real Politics class isn't just another course in the College's undergraduate public policy program, it's a chance to learn from two highly accomplished professionals and to test their own political astuteness when they present their choice for the next U.S. president in the final class.

"This is far too good an opportunity to pass up—to be taught by amazing women—and learn how to affect the political process," said Cat Snell, a first-year student. "I hope it will give me a feeling for what it would be like to enter politics."

Mama said she is "captivated" by the Bay Area and Mills students, some of whom she met while serving as chair of the board of the San Francisco-based Global Fund for Women, an international foundation that funds projects to support women's human rights worldwide.

"Mills students are progressive, committed, socially responsible, and they want to contribute to the world. I hope to activate their talents, and help them translate their education into positive social change," she said.

Mama is the founding editor of Feminist Africa, Africa's first accredited continental journal in gender studies. She was the first chair in gender studies at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is the author of Beyond the Masks: Race, Gender and Subjectivity (Routledge 1995), a landmark study that examined transnational identity and is considered one of Africa's 100 best books in the 20th century. In 2006, Mama was honored by the African Studies Association, a U.S.-based organization of Africanist scholars.

Previously Mama lectured in Women and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies at The Hague, Netherlands, and co-directed a public policy program at the Development and Project Planning Centre, University of Bradford, England. She has served on the board of directors of the United Nations Institute for Research for Social Development, and currently sits on the board of the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana, the Swedish government's Development Policy Council, the United Nations Committee for Development Planning, and the African Union Gender Advisory Committee.

"With her background and expertise, there isn't another woman in the world who could fit the new Barbara Lee Professorship as well as Amina Mama," said Lee. "I have always believed in transnational perspectives."

Nestled in the foothills of Oakland, California, Mills College is a nationally renowned, independent liberal arts college offering a dynamic progressive education that fosters leadership, social responsibility, and creativity to approximately 900 undergraduate women and 500 graduate women and men. Since 2000, applications to Mills College have more than doubled. The college ranks as one of the top colleges in the West by U.S. News & World Report and one of the Best 366 Colleges by the Princeton Review.

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