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Faculty Spotlight: Luise White

Dr. Luise White spent the past year researching and writing as a Fellow of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. Her newest book will focus on white soldiers in the Rhodesian Army, continuing some of the issues that grew out of her last book about the Rhodesian state. In her new book, she has used the papers of the Rhodesian Army (available in the now defunct British Empire and Commonwealth Museum), interviews, and the extraordinary number of memoirs written by white soldiers in the Rhodesian Army. These memoirs not only contradict each other, but they argue with each other explicitly, and thus debate the conduct of the war.

Dr. White has been working on this book for some time now, building off past research on the Rhodesian war, and hopes to publish it in the next year. Dr. White believes that, “A new present requires a new history.” In the past, historical works were primarily written by those close to the regime. As Zimbabwe emerges from its twenty-year decline, histories should begin to draw from experiences previously not represented in the past. She would like to make her book available in the U.S. and Zimbabwe.

Monument to the Rhodesian Light Infantry, courtyard of the South African Police Museum in Pretoria. Photo Provided by Dr. Luise White.

 

CAS News Bulletin- Week of September 18, 2017