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About Susan Thomson

I am professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University.

Susan Thomson is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Colgate University. I like to interview pretenure scholars about their research. I am particularly keen on their method and methodology, as well as the process of producing academic knowledge about African places and people.

NBN Episodes hosted by Susan:

Urban Studies May 2, 2023

City of Refugees

The Story of Three Newcomers Who Breathed Life into a Dying American Town

Susan Hartman

Hosted by Susan Thomson
How can scholars employ the practices and techniques of investigative journalism? Susan Hartman provides an answer in her intimate look at refugee experience in the United States. In City of …
African Studies March 24, 2023

Breakup

A Marriage in Wartime

Anjan Sundaram

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Anjan Sundaram is an award-winning journalist who has written three books on African people and places: Democratic Republic of Congo in Stringer, Rwanda in Bad News and now Central African …
Genocide Studies February 24, 2023

The Politics of Genocide

From the Genocide Convention to the Responsibility to Protect

Jeffrey S. Bachman

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Why have the founding members of the United Nations (the P5) evaded accountability for their crimes of genocide? Jeff Bachman, of the American University School of International Service, provides an …
African Studies June 8, 2022

Roadblock Politics

The Origins of Violence in Central Africa

Peer Schouten

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Peer Schouten, of the Danish Institute for International Studies, has written a breathtaking book. Roadblock Politics: The Origins of Violence in Central Africa (Cambridge, 2022). Schouten mapped more than 100 …
African Studies January 31, 2022

Nyiragitwa

Daughter of Sacyega

Erin Jessee and Jerome Irankunda

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Erin Jessee, of the University of Glasgow, with her Rwandan co-author Jerome Irankunda, illustrator Christian Mafigiri, and translator Sylvere Mwizerwa, have published a graphic novel titled Nyiragitwa (Kigali: Mudacumura Publishing …
African Studies May 12, 2021

Becoming Rwandan

Education, Reconciliation, and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen

S. Garnett Russell

Hosted by Susan Thomson
In Becoming Rwandan: Education, Reconciliation and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen (Rutgers UP, 2020), S. Garnett Russell argues that although the Rwandan government makes use of global discourses in national policy documents …
African Studies April 7, 2021

Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Aesthetics of Power

Duane Jethro

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Duane Jethro’s Heritage Formation and the Senses in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Aesthetics of Power (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a terrific book. In it, Jethro develops a novel analytical framework to understand …
African Studies March 26, 2021

The Brutish Museums

The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution

Dan Hicks

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Dan Hicks, Curator and Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University has written a terrific book. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution (Pluto …
African Studies March 16, 2021

Do Not Disturb

The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad

Michela Wrong

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Michela Wrong’s Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad (PublicAffairs, 2021) is a glorious piece of journalism. It tells the story of Rwanda’s former …
African Studies February 12, 2021

100 Days

Juliane Okot Bitek

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Juliane Okot Bitek, of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, has written a terrific book of poetry on the 1994 Genocide of …
African Studies September 23, 2020

Power and the Presidency in Kenya

The Jomo Kenyatta Years

Anais Angelo

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Anais Angelo, postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Vienna has written an exceptional book entitled Power and the Presidency in Kenya: The Jomo Kenyatta …
African Studies September 7, 2020

Libya

Jacob Mundy

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Jacob Mundy is associate professor of PCON at Colgate University He’s written a great book titled Libya, published in 2018 in Polity Presses' "Hot Spots in Global Politics" series. Jacob’s …
African Studies August 5, 2020

Political Violence in Kenya

Land, Elections, and Claim-Making

Kathleen Klaus

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Kathleen Klaus, Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco has written a terrific book, Political Violence in Kenya: Land, Elections, and Claim-Making published in 2020 by Cambridge …
African Studies July 20, 2020

Motorbike People

Power and Politics on Rwandan Streets

Will Rollason

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Will Rollason is senior lecturer of anthropology at Brunel University London. He’s written a fascinating book titled Motorbike People: Power and Politics on Rwandan Streets (Lexington Books, 2020). Will’s book …
African Studies July 7, 2020

Seeing Like A Citizen

Decolonization, Development and the Making of Kenya, 1945-1980

Kara Moskowitz

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Kara Moskowitz, Assistant Professor of African History as the University of Missouri-St. Louis. has written a terrific book, Seeing Like A Citizen: Decolonization, Development and the Making of Kenya, 1945-198 …
African Studies February 4, 2020

Media in Postapartheid South Africa

Postcolonial Politics in the Age of Globalization

Sean Jacobs

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Sean Jacobs, Associate Professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City. Jacobs is also the founder and editor of the acclaimed Africa is A Country website …
African Studies January 21, 2020

Making Refuge

Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine

Catherine L. Besteman

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Catherine L. Besteman's book Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine (Duke University Press, 2016) is an important contribution to our understanding of the process of remaking one’s way …
African Studies December 2, 2019

Migrant Women of Johannesburg

Everyday Life in an In-Between City

Caroline Wanjiku Kihato

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Caroline Wanjiku Kihato's Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Everyday Life in an In-Between City (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013) is a book about home and not-home, eloquently told about the hopes and dreams …
African Studies October 17, 2019

Bodies of Truth

Law, Memory, and Emancipation in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Rita Kesselring

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Rita Kesselring’s important book Bodies of Truth: Law, Memory, and Emancipation in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Stanford University Press, 2017) seeks to understand the embodied and everyday effects of state-sponsored violence …
African Studies August 7, 2019

The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa

Politics and Violence in Darfur, Oromia, and the Tana Delta

Tsega Etefa

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Are ethnic conflicts in Africa the product of age-old ancient hatreds? Tsega Etefa’s new book, The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa: Politics and Violence in Darfur, Oromia, and the …
African Studies July 24, 2019

Namibia and Germany

Negotiating the Past

Reinhart Kössler

Hosted by Susan Thomson
Today’s Namibia was once the German colony of South West Africa, for a 30-year period spanning of 1884 to 1915. From 1904-1908, German colonial troops committed the first genocide of …