Adeline M. Masquelier

Adeline M. Masquelier is a Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University’s Department of Anthropology, part of the School of Liberal Arts. Her research spans over three decades in Niger, focusing on religion, gender, health, youth cultures, education, and environmental issues. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Her major works include Prayer Has Spoiled Everything (2001), Women and Islamic Revival in a West African Town (2009), and Fada: Boredom and Belonging in Niger (2019). She has received prestigious awards such as the Herskovits Award and Guggenheim Fellowship. Her current research explores mass possession phenomena in Nigerien schools, intersecting religion, ecology, and education.

Masquelier teaches courses like Medical Anthropology, Global Africa, and Development Theory. She previously chaired Tulane’s Anthropology Department and directed its Religious Studies Program. She is a past president of the Society for the Anthropology of Religion and edits the International African Library for Cambridge University Press.

Her work has been supported by grants from NSF, NEH, Wenner-Gren, and others. She currently focuses on a project examining schools haunted by historical and future anxieties in Niger, blending anthropological and ecological perspectives.