Director
mjr530@msstate.edu
(662)-325-3604
I am a historian of eastern Africa, interested in (among many topics) the histories of science and scholarship, language, standardization, bureaucracy, creativity, and learning. My first book, A Language for the World: The Standardization of Swahili (Ohio University Press, November 2022), examines the long-term, interconnected processes that produced Standard Swahili as it is taught around the world today, zooming in on various moments of conversation, translation, and codification. My next project is an examination of the notions of “research” and “the researcher” in the context of turn-of-the-twentieth century East Africa. I am also very interested in the history of the postal system in Tanganyika/Tanzania, and I proudly serve as the Director of the Institute for the Humanities here at Mississippi State.