Foreign Policy Blogs

Changes and an Introduction at the FPA Blogs

Hi. My name is Derek Catsam. I am the Senior Blogger for the Foreign Policy Association’s Africa Blog. We are undergoing immense growth and transition at the FPA Blogs. One of these is to consolidate our many fine blogs (which make up the largest network of foreign affairs blogs anywhere) into coherent, managable categories. This blog will be combined with several others — Africa, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon, and Iran— into a group of blogs under the heading “Africa and the Middle East.” I will serve as Senior Editor and will continue to blog about African affairs and may occasionally branch outward.

As part of these changes we will be adding to our bloggers. The first of the new contributors I want to introduce is Adil Elassali:

A graduate of the University of Utah with a degree in International Relations and Economics, Adil Elassali is interested in international development as a source for stability and progress in the Middle East and Africa.

Adil will begin blogging soon and will supplement the fine work that Susan MacDougall and Mark Dillen have been doing on this vitally important region and its role in the world.

 

Author

Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is a Professor of history and Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is also Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and on the 1981 South African Springbok rugby team's tour to the US. He is the author of three books, dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, and has published widely on current affairs in African, American, and European publications. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

Contact