In most learned societies, including this one, the president is expected to take the opportunity offered by the annual meeting to deliver himself of some reasonably academic statements--usually of a more or less esoteric nature--on a particular aspect of the field or discipline with which he has an especially close acquaintance from his own research. Under the particular circumstances of this meeting of the African Studies Association, however, I propose to break with past practice and to talk with you this morning about some aspects of the general health of the Association and, perhaps more importantly, of the health of research in African studies.

I would like to begin with a brief summary of the major happenings in the life of the Association which have transpired over the course of the past year. I would then like to comment on some of the topics which are to be discussed in the panels scheduled for later this morning and for tomorrow evening. The purpose of these latter remarks will be chiefly to provide a kind of springboard from which the panel discussions may take off--if only from a position of disagreement with my comments.

It is customary to provide at the beginning of a scholarly volume both a disclaimer and achnowledgements. I will follow this custom, first by emphasizing clearly that what I have to say this morning is to be considered as a purely personal statement.