Les Switzer (University of Houston)

Submitted: Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999

Les Switzer
Professor
School of Communication
University of Houston
Houston, Texas 77204-3786  USA

phone:  713-743-2883 (0)
	713-721-6486 (H)
fax:    713-743-2876
email:  lswitzer@uh.campuscwix.net (personal)
email:  lswitzer@uh.edu (office)

I was a working journalist for nine years in the United States, South
Africa and Britain. I also spent 11 years as an academic at two
universities in South Africa, and I have lectured in various other
countries in Africa and in Europe. 

At present, I am a professor in the School of Communication.  I was head
of the Journalism Program, from 1994 to 1998 (which included
News-editorial, Advertising, Public Relations and Photojournalism), and an
adjunct professor in the Department of History. I was also co-founder and
co-director of the Center for Critical Cultural Studies at the University
of Houston (1990-1996).

My Ph.D. is in African history. 

My teaching and research interests are journalism and media studies,
development studies, cultural studies and southern African studies. I have
received more than 30 individual grants and awards from Britain, South
Africa and the United States for my research activities. Publications
total seven books and monographs, an edited conference proceedings, and
about 24 book chapters, articles and essays in scholarly journals. 

My major books: The Black Press in South Africa and Lesotho, A Descriptive
Bibliographic Guide 1836-1976 (1979); Media and Dependency in South Africa
(1985); Power and Resistance in an African society: The Ciskei Xhosa and
the Making of South Africa (1993); and South Africa's Alternative Press: 
Voices of Protest and Resistance, 1880-1960 (1997).