Timothy P. Longman, Associate Professor, Political Science

B.A. Phillips University; M.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison

Timothy Longman is associate professor of Africana Studies and Political Science. He teaches courses on African Politics, Human Rights, African American Politics, and Comparative Multicultural Politics. He has taught at Vassar since 1986. Before coming to Vassar, Professor Longman was the director of the Human Rights Watch office in Rwanda, and he continues to work as a consultant to Human Rights Watch, the International Center for Transitional Justice on Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and he has visiting professor at Drake University and the National University of Rwanda.

Professor Longman’s research interests focus on ethnic identity and conflict, human rights and justice, democratization, and religion and politics, with a regional focus on East and Central Africa. Since 2001, he has served as a research fellow at the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley, where he directed the Rwanda part of a major comparative research project on post-conflict social reconstruction, "Communities in Crisis," funded by the MacArthur Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, and the Sandler Family Fund. Preliminary results of this project are published in the book, My Neighbor, My Enemy, and Professor Longman is currently writing a book based on this research project, Life After Death: Memory, Justice, and Power in Post-Genocide Rwanda that looks in depth at the process of social reconstruction in post-genocide Rwanda. Along with colleagues from UC, Berkeley, Professor Longman received a major grant in 2004 from the United States Institute for Peace, "Education for Reconciliation in Rwanda," to work with the Rwandan Ministry of Education to develop a history curriculum for Rwandan secondary schools. He is the author of more than fifty articles, book chapters, and human rights reports, in journals such as African Studies Review, Journal of Genocide Research, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. His book, Commanded by the Devil: Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.