Elizabeth MacGonagle (University of Kansas, Lawrence)

Submitted: Mon, 17 March 2008


Elizabeth MacGonagle
Assistant Professor
Department of History
University of Kansas
1445 Jayhawk Blvd.
Room 3619
Lawrence, Kansas  66045-7590 USA

phone:  (785) 864-9452
fax:    (785) 864-5046
email:  macgonag@ku.edu


My research is devoted to investigating historical processes of identity 
formation that consider the workings of memory--past and present--in both 
Africa and the African Diaspora. This research trajectory examines links 
of nation, culture, and ethnicity across historical, geographical, and 
theoretical boundaries.

My book Crafting Identity in Zimbabwe and Mozambique (Rochester, 
2007) shows how one language group, the Ndau of southeast Africa, actively 
shaped their own identity and gave it meaning over a four-hundred-year 
period. Future work will focus on twentieth-century ethnic, national, and 
transnational identities between the Ndau and their neighbors.

Another publication focuses on the significance of Ghana's slave forts in 
our collective memory since their use during the transatlantic slave 
trade. This article, "From Dungeons to Dance Parties: Contested Histories 
of Ghanas Slave Forts," appeared in the Journal of Contemporary 
African Studies in May 2006. 

In my current research I am examining several extraordinary sites of 
memory (World Heritage Sites recognized by UNESCO) steeped in history.