Charles D. Piot, Professor of Cultural Anthropology

Please note: Charles has left the "Center for African and African American Research" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Charlie Piot, Peter Lange Faculty Director of DukeEngage and Professor of Cultural Anthropology & African and African American Studies, does research on the political economy and history of rural West Africa. His first book, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999), attempted to re-theorize a classic out-of-the-way place as within the modern and global. His next book, Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War (2010), explored shifts in Togolese political culture during the 1990s, a time when the NGOs and charismatic churches took over the biopolitical, reorganizing social and political life in the absence of the state.  His most recent book, The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles (2019), is about Togolese who apply for and attempt to game the US Diversity Visa Lottery.  He has begun research focusing on the return of Togolese from the diaspora to West Africa.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	210 Friedl Building, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/CA/faculty/charles.piot

Teaching (Spring 2026):

• AAAS 103.01, INTRO TO AFRICAN STUDIES Synopsis

  Perkins 217, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

  (also cross-listed as CULANTH 105.01, HISTORY 129.01, ICS 110.01, POLSCI 108.01)

• CULANTH 350.01, ANTHROPOLOGY OF MONEY Synopsis

  Social Sciences 136, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

  (also cross-listed as AAAS 211.01, ECON 226.01, ICS 328.01, PUBPOL 306.01)

• CULANTH 753S.01, ANTHROPOLOGY OF MONEY Synopsis

  Social Sciences 136, TuTh 10:05 AM-11:20 AM

Education:

Ph.D.	University of Virginia	1986
M.A.	University of Virginia	1982
B.A.	Princeton University	1973

Specialties:

Transnationalism
Political Economy
Post Colonialism
Popular Culture
Africa
African Diaspora

Research Interests:

I do research on contemporary culture and politics, as well as on histories of slavery and colonialism, in francophone West Africa. My first book, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999) attempted to retheorize a classic out-of-the-way place as within the modern and the global. My recent book, Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa After the Cold War (2010), explores the way in which human rights discourse, democratization, NGOs, and charismatic Christianity are remaking sovereignty, the biopolitical, and political culture in West Africa. An in-progress book on Togolese applying for, and attempting to game, the US Diversity (green card) lottery also explores the experiences of West African expatriates in the US and Europe. I am co-editor of the journal Cultural Anthropology through 2015.

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

• Christina Tekie  
• Louis Yako  
• Mackenzie Cramblit  
• Yidong Gong  
• Robert Penner  
• Brian Smithson  
• Spencer Orey  
• Ameem Lutfi  
• Jon Stapnes  
• Jennifer Chien  
• Sarah Lincoln  
• Juhyung Shim  
• Jatin Dua  
• Laura Premack  
• Eric Owens  
• Margaret Mahon  
• Ellen Gray  
• Danny Hoffman  
• Yektan Turkyilmaz  
• Senay Ozden  
• Attiya Ahmad  
• Netta Van Vliet  
• Mara Kaufman  
• Johnetta Pressley  
• Chad Eggleston  
• Brendan Pietsch  
• Justin Izzo  
• Brian Goldstone  
• Tami Navarro  
• Amy Johnson  
• Arianne Dorval  
• Louisa Lombard  
• Katherine Lambert-Pennington  
• Kaifa Roland  
• Gonzalo Lamana  
• Heather Settle  
• Caroline Yezer  
• Nilgun Uygun  
• Jennifer Prough  
• Nichole Green  

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Piot, C, Nostalgia For the Future: West Africa After the Cold War (2010), University of Chicago Press (Winner of the African Politics Conference Group Award for Best Book on African Politics published in 2010.)
2. Piot, C, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999), University of Chicago Press (Co-winner of the Royal Anthropological Institute's Amaury Talbot Prize for Africanist Anthropology and a finalist for the African Studies Association's Herskovits Prize. French translation - "Isolement Global: la Modernite du Village au Togo" - Karthala Press, 2008..)
3. Piot, C, Heat on the Street: Video Violence in American Teen Culture, Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol. 6 no. 3 (2003), pp. 351-365
4. Piot, C, Des cosmopolites dans la brousse, Les Temps Modernes, vol. 57 no. 620-21 (2002), pp. 240-260
5. Piot, C, Atlantic Aporias: Africa and Gilroy's Black Atlantic, South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 100 no. 1 (January, 2001), pp. 155-170, Duke University Press, ISSN 0038-2876 [Gateway.cgi], [doi]