Sean Jacobs is an associate professor of international affairs at The New School in New York City. He is founder and editor of Africa Is a Country, a progressive site of opinion, analysis and new writing about Africa and its diaspora. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa and studied for a BA in African Politics at the University of Cape Town, a BA Hons in Political Science at UNISA, an MA in Political Science at Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Politics from Birkbeck College. 

Previously he worked as a political researcher for the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa).  He is a recipient of Commonwealth and Fulbright scholarships and fellowships from The New School, New York University and Harvard University. He is an Africa No Filter. Fellow (2019) and Shuttleworth Fellow (2019, 2020). His book, Media in Postapartheid South Africa: Postcolonial Politics in the Age of Globalization, was published by Indiana University Press in 2019 and by Wits University Press in 2020. 

He has published numerous blog posts, reviews and opinion editorials in publications such as The Nation, The Guardian, The New York Times, Mail & Guardian, Jacobin and Brasil de Fato. Africa Is a Country has received funding from Open Society Foundations and the Shuttleworth Foundation for its work. He serves on the boards of Atlantic Fellows on Racial Equity and the Kalakuta Trust (publishers of Chimurenga Chronic). He served on the board of the African Studies Association between 2018 and 2021.