Drop-in hours 

• Tuesdays, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 2 - 3 p.m., Thursdays, 11 a.m. - 12 p.m., or by appointment

James Giblin has been a member of the History Department since 1986. His primary research interest is Tanzania and East Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His research areas include:

• African history
• 19^th-20^th century Tanzania and East Africa
• Social history of Africa
• Political history of Post-Colonial Tanzania
• History of health and healing in Africa

His first book, The Politics of Environmental Control in Northeastern Tanzania, 1840-1940 (University of Pennsylvania Press), explored connections between environmental and political change. More recent research on social history in twentieth-century Tanzania has been published as A History of the Excluded: Making Family and Memory a Refuge from State in Twentieth-Century Tanzania (James Currey, 2006). He is the co-editor of two books, and has contributed articles to a number of edited volumes and journals, including the Journal of African History and Azania. In recent years he has held major fellowships from Fulbright-Hays, the Faculty Scholar program of the University of Iowa, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His current work includes co-direction of a collaborative research project on the oral history of the Maji Maji war, a major rebellion against German colonialism in Tanzania during 1905-06.

He earned a PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1986.

Teaching

He teaches the history of Africa. Courses recently taught include:

• HIST:1000  First Year Seminar
• HIST:4710  Pre-Colonial African History
• HIST:4715  African History Since 1880
• HIST:6001  First Year Graduate Colloquium
• HIST:6002  History Research Methods
• HIST:7710  Seminar: Interpreting Oral Histories

Awards and service

• Director of Graduate Studies, Department of History, University of Iowa (2004-06)
• Honors Director, Department of History, University of Iowa (2004)
• Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of History, University of Iowa (2001-04)
• Moody Grant, The Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation (2004)
• U.S. Department of State, Speaker and Specialist Grant (2004)
• Collaborative Project Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities, co-recipient with J. Monson, Carleton College (2001)
• Arts and Humanities Initiative, University of Iowa (1998, 1999, 2003)
• Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Award (1997)
• Faculty Scholar, University of Iowa (1996-97, 1998-99, 2000-01)
• Council on Teaching Grant, University of Iowa (1995)
• Summer Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities (1984)
• Central Investment Fund for Research Enhancement Grant, University of Iowa (1993)
• Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Research Grant (1989)
• National Institute of Health, Junior Faculty Seed Grant (1989)
• Old Gold Fellowship, University of Iowa (1987, 1988)
• American Council of Learned Societies, Grant-in-Aid (1987)
• Travel to Collections Award, National Endowment for the Humanities (1987)

Publications

Books

• A History of the Excluded: Making Family and Memory a Refuge From State in Twentieth-Century Tanzania (2006)
• In Search of a Nation: Histories of Authority & Dissidence in Tanzania (2006)
• The Politics of Environmental Control in Northeastern Tanzania, 1840-1940 (1992)

Articles

• "The Victimization of Women in Late Precolonial and Early Colonial Warfare in Tanzania" Chapter 5 of Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights, edited by Elizabeth Heineman, (2011), pp. 89-102.