The Michigan State University African Studies Center has over a hundred Core Faculty with experience on Africa, probably one of the largest in the nation. The Center features many scholars in social science, agricultural economics, African languages, the arts and humanities, education, health and medicine and many other fields.
The faculty members are listed alphabetically by college and departmental affiliation, noting geographical areas of Africa experience, and teaching and research interests.
If you are interested in becoming a part of the African Studies Center's Core Faculty, please fill out the Membership Request form.
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John Aerni-Flessner
Department: Residential College in the Arts & Humanities (RCAH)
Countries/Research: Lesotho
Email: aernifL1(at)msu.edu
Biography:
John Aerni-Flessner earned a BA in History from Grinnell College in Iowa. He taught high school in rural Lesotho (a country in southern Africa) and in the Yup'ik community of Kwethluk, Alaska before returning to graduate school. He earned a PhD in African and World History from Washington University in St. Louis and taught at SUNY Cortland prior to his arrival at Michigan State. His historical research focuses on the history of borders, development, independence and on relations between South Africa and Lesotho. He teaches a wide range of classes tend to focus on like nationalism, enslavement, leisure and popular culture, and the history of development. He has published two books: Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development with the University of Notre Dame Press and White Gold and Thirsty Communities: The Cold War, Apartheid, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project with the Africa Institute of South Africa. He co-edited Migrant, Borders, and Borderlands with three South African and Zimbabwean collaborators, and was the co-author of The Historical Dictionary of Lesotho, 3rd Edition with Charles Fogelman and Nthabiseng Mokoena-Mokhali.
