Michael Kithinji
Associate Professor of History
Irby 421
(501) 450-5650
Michael Mwenda Kithinji is an associate professor of history and co-director of the African and African-American Studies program at the University of Central Arkansas. He is a recipient of the Ohio Academy of History (OAH) 2011 Outstanding Dissertation Award, the Bowling Green State University (BGSU) Graduate College’s Distinguished Dissertation Award for 2010-11, and the BGSU History Department’s Friedman Dissertation Award for 2010-2011. His research and teaching interests are in colonial and postcolonial Africa, education and intellectual history, policy history, and pan-Africanism and African Diaspora. His book The State and the University Experience in East Africa: Colonial Foundations and Post-Colonial Transformation in Kenya, (University of South Africa Press, 2018), investigates the dynamics that have influenced the development of university education in Kenya and the wider East African region in the colonial and postcolonial period. In addition, he co-edited the two volume Kenya After 50: Reconfiguring Historical, Political, and Policy Milestones (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Kenya After 50: Reconfiguring Education, Gender, and Policy, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). His other publications appear in the Canadian Journal of African Studies, OFO: Journal of Transatlantic Studies, and The Dictionary of African Biography.