Julie Weiskopf joined GU’s faculty in 2018 as the department’s first Africanist. Her specialty is colonial and postcolonial Tanzanian social history, which has allowed her to research topics like forced resettlement schemes, wildlife conservation, public health, and literacy. She received her BA at Seattle University in History and English and then served for two years in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps before pursuing graduate work at the University of Minnesota.
After graduate school, Dr. Weiskopf continued in the Midwest for another eight years as a faculty member of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. While there, she spent 10 months in Tanzania as a Fulbright US Scholar. Her time in Tanzania was split between teaching two courses at the University of Dar es Salaam and conducting research on her current project on adult literacy campaigns.
Dr. Weiskopf’s arrival on campus was a homecoming, as she was born and raised in Spokane. Her outside interests include hiking with her dog, travel, cooking, and avoiding yard work.
Review of Beyond the State: The Colonial Medical Service in British Africa edited by Anna Greenwood. Journal of African History 58.3 (2017) 517-518.
Review of The Nature of German Imperialism: Conservation and the Politics of Wildlife in Colonial East Africa by Bernhard Gissibl. International Journal of African Historical Studies 50.1 (2017), 162-3.
“Living in ‘Cold Storage’: An Interior History of Tanzania’s Sleeping Sickness Concentrations, 1933-1946,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 49.1 (2016), 1-22.
“Socialism on Safari: Wildlife and Nation-Building in Postcolonial Tanzania, 1961-1977,” The Journal of African History 56.3 (2015), 429-447.
Review of Global Health in Africa edited by Tamara Giles-Vernick and James L. Webb. Connections: A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists (November 2015).
Review of The Making and Unmaking of Public Health in Africa edited by Ruth Prince and Rebecca Marsland. International Journal of African Historical Studies 48.1 (2015), 137-8.
Co-author, “Creating a Graduate Course in Public History and Confronting the Divide.” Radical History Review 102 (2008): 73-89.
As a social historian of Tanzania, Dr. Weiskopf’s research interests have ranged widely from public health to wildlife conservation to resettlement schemes in the colonial and postcolonial period. Her current research project concerns adult literacy campaigns in 1970s Tanzania.
Dr. Weiskopf’s work has appeared in the The Journal of African History and The International Journal of African Historical Studies.