Julie Weiskopf

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.

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.

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.