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About Elisa Prosperetti

Elisa Prosperetti is an Assistant Professor in International History at the National Institute of Education in Singapore. Her research focuses on the connected histories of education and development in postcolonial West Africa. Contact her at here.

Elisa's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Elisa:

African Studies August 19, 2023

A Language for the World

The Standardization of Swahili

Morgan J. Robinson

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Morgan J. Robinson argues that the portability of Standard Swahili has contributed to its wide use not only across the African continent but also around the globe. A Language for …
General History February 5, 2023

Inventing the Third World

In Search of Freedom for the Postwar Global South

Gyan Prakash and Jeremy Adelman

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
What is the Third World? The term has essentially been scrubbed from our collective consciousness. What once used to be something concrete seems to have vanished into thin air. Today …
Russian and Eurasian Studies January 10, 2023

Arrested Development

The Soviet Union in Ghana, Guinea, and Mali, 1955-1968

Alessandro Iandolo

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
In the middle of the 20th century, there was a passionate affair, between the Soviet empire and newly independent West African states. It was a short, intense, and acrimonious love …
African Studies December 3, 2022

Decolonizing 1968

Transnational Student Activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar

Burleigh Hendrickson

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Decolonizing 1968: Transnational Student Activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar (Cornell UP, 2022) explores how activists in 1968 transformed university campuses across Europe and North Africa into sites of contestation …
General History July 7, 2022

Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982

Florian Wagner

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Today I talked to Florian Wagner about his new book Colonial Internationalism and the Governmentality of Empire, 1893–1982 (Cambridge UP, 2022). From its founding in 1893, to its decline in the …
African Studies May 26, 2022

'Dignity of Labour' for African Leaders

The Formation of Education Policy in the British Colonial Office and Achimota School

Shoko Yamada

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
The Prince of Wales College, Achimota School, opened in 1927 north of Accra in the Gold Coast (Ghana). Achimota was to be a ‘model’ school—but a model of what, exactly …
African Studies April 26, 2022

Amkoullel

The Fula Boy

Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
“In Africa, when an elder dies, a library burns.” We’ve all heard this phrase, or some version of it, but not all of us know who uttered it. It was …
African Studies September 24, 2021

Islamic Scholarship in Africa

New Directions and Global Contexts

Ousmane Oumar Kane

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
In 1937, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, travelling to Mecca to make his first hajj, encountered Egyptian scholars who couldn’t fathom that Niasse’s erudition was a product of his fully Senegalese education …
African Studies August 12, 2021

Village Work

Development and Rural Statecraft in Twentieth-Century Ghana

Alice Wiemers

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Most development histories focus on large-scale projects and multi-year plans. But how would we understand development differently if we chose a different starting point? In Village Work: Development and Rural …
Education July 19, 2021

The OECD’s Historical Rise in Education

The Formation of a Global Governing Complex

Christian Ydesen

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
In 1961, it was famously declared that the “fight for education is too important to be left solely to the educators.” Enter the OECD. In The OECD’s Historical Rise in …
African Studies January 13, 2021

The Idea of Development in Africa

A History

Corrie Decker and Elisabeth McMahon

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
The Idea of Development in Africa: A History (Cambridge UP, 2020) challenges prevailing international development discourses about the continent, by tracing the history of ideas, practices, and 'problems' of development used …
African Studies December 10, 2020

Powerful Frequencies

Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931-2002

Marissa J. Moorman

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
Marissa J. Moorman's book Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931–2002 (Ohio University Press, 2019) narrates Angolan history with the radio at its center. From its …
African Studies September 25, 2020

The Golden Rhinoceros

Histories of the African Middle Ages

François-Xavier Fauvelle

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
What are the African Middle Ages? A place, certainly, and a time period, evidently. But also a “documentary regime,” argues François-Xavier Fauvelle. How do we reconstruct these centuries of the …
African Studies August 5, 2020

Holding the World Together

African Women in Changing Perspective

Nwando Achebe and Claire Robertson

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
“The most interesting women in the world!” That’s how Claire Robertson describes African women, and it’s hard to disagree with her after reading Holding the World Together: African Women in …
African Studies July 23, 2020

An Intimate Rebuke

Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa

Laura S. Grillo

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
What if the moral guardians of West African societies are postmenopausal women? This is the argument that Laura S. Grillo makes in her 2018 book, An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital …
African Studies June 15, 2020

Beneath the Surface

A Transnational History of Skin Lighteners

Lynn M. Thomas

Hosted by Elisa Prosperetti
By 2024, global sales of skin lighteners are projected to reach more than $30 billion. Despite the planetary scale of its use, skin lightening remains a controversial cosmetic practice. Lynn …