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Author Archives: Timothy Burke
Playing Reindeer Games
In her op-ed on Robert Mugabe, Heidi Holland portrays him partially as a wayward child of Western civilization who has his nose pressed against the glass, hoping to be invited back in from the cold from whence his “heathen granny” … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Politics
8 Comments
The Ministers for Omnipotent Ruritania Offer You a Deal
I had two separate reactions to Heidi Holland’s op-ed about Robert Mugabe, so I’ll blog about it twice. Holland argues that Western nations should make peace with Robert Mugabe, partly on the grounds that a punitive approach has accomplished nothing … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Politics
6 Comments
Contingency
The students in my Central Africa survey are writing papers about whether there were any distinct points at which the independence of the Belgian Congo might have turned out differently than it did. Like most counterfactuals involving colonialism, it’s a … Continue reading
Posted in Africa
8 Comments
Does the Other Shoe Ever Drop?
If you’ll recall, my initial statement on Ward Churchill was that I found his scholarly work extremely weak, and agreed that his case raised questions about standards and expectations in academic life, particularly in programs that see identity as a … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Politics
35 Comments
The Things That Hold
I spend a lot of time in my classes and my scholarly writing trying to explore the legacy of European colonialism and the Atlantic slave trade in Africa. I think these are wide-open questions. Depending on my mood, I can … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Politics
3 Comments
Gustatus Similus Pullus
You never know if you’re getting punk’d by a story on April Fool’s Day, but assuming this story about secret military units and their patches is on the level, there’s some interesting metacultural content to many of the patches. The … Continue reading
Posted in Miscellany
5 Comments
March Out Like the Lion (In Zimbabwe, That Is)
I’ve been fielding a few requests for my evaluation of this weekend’s elections in Zimbabwe. There are scholars and journalists out there with more recent experience in Zimbabwe whose views I’d trust more than mine. Still, here’s how I laid … Continue reading
Posted in Africa
6 Comments
Out of Pocket
Last night, I was searching through my iPod for some of the African music I’ve ripped from my CD collection, to play briefly in class today. Unfortunately, some of what we’ve got is on old vinyl records that I’ve never … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
8 Comments
The Veil
Oso Raro and Tenured Radical underline one of the biggest problems with the tenure system in academia: its mystery. They’re both trying to write about a controversial tenure case at the University of Michigan, to understand the seeming mismatch between … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
3 Comments
Border Guards
I was thinking of writing a One-a-Day post about Tim Weiner’s compelling history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. (I’ve been reading books, just not blogging about my reading. I’ll catch up soon.) Then I read Stephen Weissman’s critique of … Continue reading