JAN BENDER SHETLERAssociate Professor of HistoryGoshen College |
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| Education/Degrees: | Ph.D., History Master of Arts, History |
| Major Subjects: | Major in African History with emphasis in East Africa, Pre-colonial History, Oral Tradition, Ethnicity/Social Identity, Social History. Minor in Latin American History with emphasis in the Caribbean, Brazil, Slavery, African diaspora. Course work in Historical Linguistics, African Iron-Age Archaeology, Ethnography, Cultural Theory, Anthropology. Research interest in social theory of space. Grade Point Average 4.0 (A=4) |
| Master's Thesis : | "Kiroba Identity and the Historian's Task: A Text from the Forgotten Side of the Lake." |
| Dissertation: | "The Landscapes of Memory: A History of Social Identity in the Western Serengeti, Tanzania," defended April 3, 1998. |
| Grants and Awards: | Finalist for the 2005 Paul Hair Prize, for Telling our own Stories: Local Histories from South Mara, Tanzania, African Studies Association, Nov. 2005. Minninger Center Faculty Research Grant, 2004 National Endowment for the Humanities, Research Fellowship, June 1–December 30, 2003. Multi-Cultural Education Grant and Faculty Women's Scholarship Grant for Summer research trip to Tanzania, June 2001 and 2003. The Institute for the Study of Religion and Culture in Africa and the African Diaspora, University of Notre Dame, Fellow 2001-2002. Linda Vance Scholarship Award, for best dissertation in Women's History, University of Florida, 1998. College Of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida, Dissertation Write-up Fellowship, 1997. Social Science Research Council Fellowship, International Doctoral Research 1995-. Fulbright IIE 1995. Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship 1992-1994. University of Florida Grinter Fellowship and Research Assistant 1991-1992. |
| Publications: | Imagining Serengeti: A History of Landscape Memory in Tanzania from Earliest Times to the Present, Athens: Ohio University Press, under contract, 2007. "'Region' as Historical Production: Narrative Maps from the WesternSerengeti, Tanzania," in The Spatial Factor in African History, edited by Allen M. Howard and Richard M. Shain, Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2005. "Interpreting Rupture in Oral Memory: The Regional Context for Changes in Western Serengeti Age Organization," Journal of African History, 44 (2004): 385-412. “The Gendered Spaces of Historical Knowledge: Women's Knowledge and Extraordinary Women in the Serengeti District, Tanzania,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 36, 2 (2003): 283-307.
Peoples of the Western Serengeti, a video produced with Goshen College ITS Media, June 2002. "The Politics of Publishing Oral Sources from the Mara Region, Tanzania," History in Africa, Vol. 29, 2002. pp. 413-26. Historia ya Ikizu na Sizaki, by P. M. Mturi and S. Sasora. Historia ya Abakiroba: Desturi na Mila Zao, by Marwa Kishamuri. Historia ya Mzee Magoto Mossi Magoto, byNyamaganda Magoto. Kamusi Ndogo ya Kinata-Kiswahili, by Augustine N. M. Kisigiro. All edited and produced by Jan Shetler, Goshen College, 2001. "Of Boundary Shifters and Disappearing Tribes: Reverberations Between East Africa and the American Southwest." New Mexico Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 3, July 1996, pp. 257-267. "A Gift for Generations to Come: A Kiroba Popular History from Tanzania and Identity as Social Capital in the 1980s." International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 1, 1995, pp. 69-112. Book Review, “Missions, Nationalism, and the End of Empire,” African Studies Review, (April 2006). Book Review, “Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda: Economy, Society and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century,” H-NET BOOK REVIEW, Published by H-Africa@h-net.msu.edu, posted July 2003. Review Essay "Has Religion Gone Global?" African Studies Review 45, 3 (December 2002), 57-62. Book Review, "African Novels in the Classroom, International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 34. No. 2, 2001. Book Review, "East African Expressions of Christianity," African Studies Review, Vol.42, No. 3, 1999, pp. 266-268. |
| Presentations: | “Ethnic Narratives of Unity and Difference: Post-colonial Popular Historians of North and South Mara, Tanzania,” Cambridge Workshop, 31 March – 1 April 2006, 'Ethno-History and the Construction of Identity in Twentieth-Century Africa' “Memory and Pre-colonial Clan Identity as Strategies for Prosperity in the Western Serengeti, Tanzania,” African Studies Association Meetings, New Orleans, 2004. “Restoring People to the Historical Serengeti Landscape: How western Serengeti peoples came to be ‘poachers,’” Panel on “Serengeti: The Human Dimension,” African Studies Association Meetings, Boston, October 30-November 2, 2003. "A Comparative Studies in World History Approach to the Curriculum" on a Panel on New Approaches to World History Curriculum at the Small Liberal Arts College, World History Association, Atlanta, June 26-29, 2003. "New Strategies for Teaching the African Past," An Alumni Seminar on African History, Center for African Studies, University of Florida, 25 April 2003. "Some Ideas for Coping with Teaching all of Africa through all of Time in One Semester," The Indiana Consortium for International Programs and the Indiana University African Studies Program, Teaching About Africa in the New Millennium, Abe Martin Lodge, Brown County State Park, March 22, 2003. "Historical Precedents for Radical Social Change in a Global Context: The Western Serengeti Meaning of 'Coming from Sonjo' in a 19th Century Maasai World," African Studies Association Meetings, Washington D.C., Dec. 5-8, 2002. "Giving Back: How Scholars Relate to the People They Study," Goshen CollegeConvocation, November 2002. "Learning How to Give and Receive: African Approaches to Rethinking Aid," Afternoon Sabbatical, Goshen College, February 12, 2002. "Identifying Changes in Intergenerational Relations through Oral Sources: The Western Serengeti Innovation during the Generation of Disasters (1870-1895),” Millennium Conference, 27-29 June 2001,University of Dar es Salaam, Department of History and the Historical Association of Tanzania. "What will the Elders Say?: The Politics of Publishing Oral Sources from the Mara Region, Tanzania," African Studies Association Meetings, Nashville, Nov. 16, 2000. “The Gendered Control of Ethnic Histories from the Mara Region, Tanzania.” African Studies Association Meetings, Philadelphia, Nov. 11-14, 1999. "Ethnic Identity in Colonial Tanganyika and its Consequences: The Serengeti National Park Controversy, 1930-1958," African Studies Assoc., Chicago, Oct., 1998. "'Region' as a Historical Product: Mental Maps of Western Serengeti Oral Tradition,"American Historical Association Meetings, Seattle, January 11, 1998. "The Choosing of the Early German Chiefs and Maps of Local Authority in the Musoma District, Tanzania," African Studies Association, Columbus, Nov. 14, 1997. "The Gendered Spaces of Historical Knowledge: Women's Knowledge and Extraordinary Women in the Western Serengeti, Tanzania," Conference on Gender, Power and Difference in African Societies, June 6-8, 1997, I.S.G.A., UCLA. "The Emerging Space of Ethnicity: The Disasters of the Late Nineteenth Century in Western Serengeti, Tanzania," Center for African Studies and Department of History Colloquium, University of Florida, February 12, 1997. "Place-names in the Oral Traditions of the Western Serengeti, Tanzania," African Studies Association Meetings, San Francisco, November 1996. "Is There Anything "New" in Precolonial History? Spatial Aspects of Oral Traditions in the Mara Region," University of Dar es Salaam History Department Seminar, Tanzania, May 23, 1996. |
| University and Department Service | Multicultural Affairs Committee, 2005- National Endowment for the Humanities, Focus Grant Review Panel, May 2003 Faculty Development Committee 2002- Task Force on Faculty Load, Fall 2002 Assessment Package for the History Department, Goshen College, 2002 Maple Scholars Program, Goshen College, Summer 2002 Search Committee, Education, March 200. Teacher Education Advisory Committee, Goshen College Women's Studies Advisory Board, Goshen College Intercultural Studies Committee, Goshen College |
| Teaching Experience | Associate Professor of History, Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, 1999 - New Curriculum for "Comparative Studies in World History," at Goshen College: Other New Courses at Goshen College: Other Courses at Goshen College: Supervision of Secondary Student Teachers in Social Studies Study-Service Term in Ethiopia Spring 2005 Oral History Workshop at the Overseas Mission Study Center, New Haven, CT, 2003 & 04 |
| Professional Associations | African Studies Association |
| Languages: | Fluent in Swahili; conversant in French, Portuguese and Amharic; reading ability in German; study of local languages in area of research. Extensive travel in Africa and Europe; studied in Haiti and Ireland with Goshen College. |
| International Work Experience | Eleven years (1980-1991) with Mennonite Central Committee (M.C.C.) working in Ethiopia (1980-83), Portugal (1984), Zaire (1984) and Tanzania (1985-91) as Secondary School teacher (Ethiopia), Coordinator for rural community development projects including women's groups, and Co-Country Representative for M.C.C. (Tanzania). |
| References: | Professor Steven Feierman (Dissertation Supervisor), Department of History, University of Pennsylvania Professor David L. Schoenbrun (Dissertation Committee Member), Department of History, Northwestern University Dean Anita Stalter (Academic Dean), Goshen College, Goshen, IN Professor John D. Roth (Department Chair), Goshen College, Goshen, IN |