Michael Schatzberg

Professor Emeritus, African Cultural Studies and Political Science

Schatzberg’s major teaching and research interests are in African politics, comparative politics, political culture, and qualitative methodology. His books include Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa: Father, Family, Food (Indiana University Press, 2001), The Dialectics of Oppression in Zaire (Indiana University Press, 1988), Politics and Class In Zaire: Bureaucracy, Business and Beer in Lisala (Holmes & Meier, Africana, 1980), and Mobutu or Chaos? The United States and Zaire, 1960-1990 (Foreign Policy Research Institute, 1991). He has also published articles in Politique africaine, Journal of Democracy, Africa, Comparative Politics, Journal of Modern African Studies, Afrika Spectrum and other professional journals. One current research project deals with the politics, economics, and culture of football (soccer) in sub-Saharan Africa, while a second explores trans-historical patterns of governance in Africa.

Selected publications:

“Ethnography and Causality: Sorcery and Popular Culture in the Congo,” in Edward Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 183-200.

“Soccer, Science, and Sorcery: Causation and African Football,” Afrika Spectrum 41:3 (2006): 351-369. http://www.giga-hamburg.de/index.php?file=afs_0603.html&folder=publikationen/archiv/af_spectrum

Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa: Father, Family, Food (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001). http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1037_1121_1146&products_id=21186