Lowell Brower
labrower@fas.harvard.edu
Barker Center, 12 Quincy St, Room 244
Cambridge, MA 02138
EDUCATION
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, MA
Ph.D. candidate, African and African-American Studies (expected 2017)
Disciplines: Social Anthropology, African Studies, Folklore & Mythology
Dissertation: “In the Place of Sorrow: Silence, Storytelling, and Sociality in Post-Genocide
Rwanda”
Committee: Jean Comaroff, John Mugane, Michael D. Jackson, Deborah Foster
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, MA
M.A., African and African American Studies (2013)
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, Seattle, WA
M.F.A., Creative Writing: Fiction and Prose (2008)
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, Madison, WI
B.A., double major in African Languages and Literature and English, summa cum laude
(2004)
Certificates in Folklore, African Studies, and Creative Writing
AWARDS and FELLOWSHIPS
Merit/Graduate Society Term-time Research Fellowship, Harvard University (2015–
2016)
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Graduate Student Associateship (2015–
2016)
FLAS (Foreign Languages and Area Studies) Fellowship to study Lingala, US
Department of Education (2015–2016)
Elizabeth Maguire Memorial Prize for Excellence in the Study of African and African
American Literature, Harvard University (2015)
Derek C. Bok Certificate of Teaching Excellence, Harvard University (2014)
FLAS (Foreign Languages and Area Studies) Fellowship to study Kinyarwanda, US
Department of Education (2014-2015)
Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship for Dissertation Research, Harvard University
(2013-2014)
Department of African and African American Studies’ Philippe Wamba Summer
Research
Travel Grant, Harvard University (2013)
Committee on African Studies Summer Research Grant, Harvard University (2013)
FLAS (Foreign Languages and Area Studies) Fellowship to study Kinyarwanda, US
Department of Education (2012-2013)
Harvard University Presidential Scholar Fellowship (2010 – 2012)
GSAS Summer Pre-dissertation Research Fellowship, Harvard University (2012)
Committee on African Studies Summer Internship Grant, Harvard University (2011)
Neil L. Rudenstine Graduate Fellowship, Harvard University (2011-2012)
Fulbright IIE Scholarship to Tanzania to study Swahili Oral Literature, US Department
of
State (2004–5)
Washington State Artist’s Trust GAP Grant for Literary Arts (2009)
David Guterson Award for Outstanding Creative Thesis in the University of Washington
Creative Writing MFA program (2008)
Charles Johnson Student Fiction Award, Crab Orchard Review (2008)
James Jones First Novel Fellowship Finalist, Wilkes University (2008)
Fulbright-Hayes Group Projects Abroad Advanced/Intensive Kiswahili Language
Fellowship
– Morogoro, Tanzania, Harvard, US Department of Education (2003)
UW-Madison English Department Hill-Muller awards in Creative Writing (2004):
Eudora Welty Prize for Best Fiction Thesis
George B. Hill and Theresa Muller award: 1st place in Short Fiction
University Bookstore Hilldale-Holstrom Award for Outstanding Thesis in the
Humanities,
UW-Madison (2004)
CONFERENCE PAPERS
November 2015 (Upcoming). “The Sorrows of Citizenship: Storytelling, Sociality, and
Self- Fashioning in a Rwandan ‘Reconciliation Village’” Paper to be presented at the
African
Studies Association Conference. San Diego, CA
October 2015 (Upcoming). “’It Happened, But It Shouldn’t Happen’: The Politics and
Poetics of Storytelling in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” Paper to be presented at the
American Folklore Society Conference. Long Beach, CA
November 2015 (Upcoming). Roundtable: Harvard Journal of African Languages in the
Disciplines
April 2015. “Once Upon a Time in the Land of Never Again: An Palimpsestic Translation
of a
Kinyarwanda Folktale Opening.” Paper presented at the Harvard University
African
Languages in the Disciplines Conference. Cambridge, MA
November 2014. “Mice, Cows, and Real Rwandans: The Refusal of “Refugeeness” in
the
Kigeme Refugee Camp.” Paper presented at the African Studies Association
Conference. Indianapolis, IN
LECTURES AND INVITED TALKS
November 2016 (Upcoming). “Lies and Reconciliation: Post-Conflict Storytelling in
Rwanda.”
Delivered as an invited speaker at Cornell University’s 2015 Issues in
African
Development Seminar. Cornell University, Mario Einaudi Center for
International Studies, Institute for African Development.
April 2015. “In The Belly of a Benevolent Beast: A Remembrance of the
Transformational
Department of
African Languages and Literature on the Eve of its Own
Transformation.” Delivered as an Invited Speaker at the Fiftieth Anniversary
Alumni
Weekend Symposium. University of Wisconsin –Madison. Department of
African
Cultural Studies. “Academic Trajectories” panel
March 2015. Discussant for Erin Mosely’s “In the Shadow of ‘Never Again': Archival
Practice
and the Documentation of Genocide in Rwanda, 1994-Present.” Harvard
African
Studies Workshop
November 2014. “The Languages of War and Peace: Ethnic Violence, Cultural Identity,
Linguistic Policy, and Post-Conflict Reconciliation in Africa’s Great Lakes.”
Lecture
for African and African American Studies 20, Harvard College
October 2014. “The Politics and Poetics of Storytelling in Contemporary Rwanda and
Tanzania” Lecture for African and African American Studies 20, Harvard College
September 2014. “The European Other: Okot P’Bitek’s Ingenius Inversions of
Colonialism’s
Dehumanizing Definitions, Malicious Mistranslations, and Egregious Exoticism in
Song of Lawino” Lecture for African and African American Studies 20, Harvard
College
March 2013. Discussant for Mark Geraghty’s “Gacaca, Jenoside.” Harvard African
Studies
Workshop.
October 2012. “Mbese, Do You Parlez KinyaFrEnglish?: The Local, Regional, and
International Politics of Language in Post-Genocide Rwanda?” Lecture for
African
and African American Studies 20, Harvard College
November 2012. “Hadithi Njoo, Uwongo Njoo. Utamu Kolea! - Come Stories, Come
Lies. Enhance the Sweetness!: Kiswahili Storytelling Events in Coastal Tanzania.”
Lecture for
African and African American Studies 20, Harvard College
UNIVERSITY TEACHING EXPEREINCE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Fall 2015, Spring 2016
Teaching Fellow – African Language Program Teaching Fellow
Department of African and African American Studies
Fall 2015
Teaching Fellow – Culture and Belief 16. Performance, Tradition, and Cultural
Studies: An Introduction to Folklore and Mythology
The Committee on Degrees in Folklore and Mythology; Prof. Steven Mitchell
Fall 2015, Spring 2016
Senior Thesis Advisor - Eve Manghis, Social Studies Concentrator.
Primary advisor for Social Studies thesis
Fall 2014, Spring 2015
Teaching Fellow – African Language Program Teaching Fellow
Department of African and African American Studies
Fall 2014, Spring 2015
Teaching Fellow / Language Instructor – Swahili A, Elementary Swahili
Department of African and African American Studies
Fall 2014, Fall 2012
Teaching Fellow – AAAS 20: Introduction to African Languages and Cultures
A Social Engagement course in the Dept. of African and African American
Studies
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Fall 2008, Spring 2009, Summer 2009
Acting Instructor – English 384 and 284 (Intermediate and Beginning
Fiction/Prose)
Department of Creative Writing
Fall 2007, Winter 2009
Acting Instructor – English 111 (Composition: African Literature)
Expository Writing Program
Fall 2007, Summer 2008
Graduate Student Instructor – English 284 (Beginning Short Story Writing)
Department of English
Fall 2006, Fall 2006, Spring 2007
Graduate Student Instructor – English 131 (Expository Writing)
Department of English
Winter 2007
Graduate Student Instructor – English 111 (Composition: Literature)
Department of English
UNIVERSIY OF WISCONSIN - MADISON
Fall 2004
Professorial Assistant and Grader for Neils Ingwersen’s “The Folktale”
Department of Folklore
AREAS OF PEDAGOCIAL INTEREST AND COMPETENCE
African Languages and Literature: African Oral Traditions and Folklore;
Communal Storytelling and Oral Performance; Kiswahili Kinyarwanda and
Lingala Written and Oral Literatures; Contemporary Anglophone and African
Literature; African Poetry.
Social Anthropology: Africanist Anthropology; Anthropology of Violence,
Displacement, and Social Reconstruction; Ethnographic Methods; Ethnographic
Writing; Ethnographic Filmmaking; Creative Ethnography; Sensory Ethnography,
Fieldwork Ethics and Social Engagement.
Folklore: History, Theory, and Methods of Folklore Studies; African Folklore;
Post-Conflict Folklore; The Folktale Genre; Heroes, Trixters, Villians, and
Swallowing Monsters; Public Folklore; Folkloric Audio-Visial Documentation;
Archival Preservation of Folkloric Materials
African Language Pedagogy: Kiswahili; Kinyarwanda; Lingala; isiXhosa; African
Language Program Coordination
Creative Writing and Composition: Fiction Writing, Creative Non-Fiction,
Expository Writing.
AFRICAN LANGUAGE SKILLS
Superior Proficiency in Kiswahili
Advanced High Proficiency in Kinyarwanda
Novice High Proficiency in IsiXhosa
Novice High Proficiency in Lingala
Intermediate Mid Proficiency in French
RESEARCH TRAINING and EXPEREINCE
Trained at Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Folkloric,
Linguistic, Ethnographic, and Historical research methods. Experienced in
ethnographic participant observation, open-ended and structured interviewing,
qualitative research design, videography and documentary filmmaking, archival
research, social engagement, Kiswahili and Kinyarwanda transcription and translation,
high-quality audio-visual documentation, online archiving, and village-based archival
preservation of research results.
20 months of ethnographic and folkloric research in coastal Tanzania, where I
attended over one thousand storytelling sessions and recorded 1645 folktales, myths,
legends, and oral histories in 68 Swahili-speaking communities in Zanzibar, Pemba,
Tumbatu, Chole, and other coastal villages. Following collection, I transcribed and
translated numerous stories and archived all audio recordings in village, regional, and
national libraries throughout Tanzania. (2001-2006)
14 months of dissertation research in rural Rwanda, including informal interviewing,
participant observation, language study, archival research, filmmaking, and oral
narrative collection. Working in all five of Rwanda’s provinces, I attended over 1000
storytelling sessions and recorded over 2000 oral narratives, folktales, myths, legends,
poems, songs, and oral histories in 32 Kinyarwanda-speaking villages and refugee
camps. Following data collection, I have transcribed and translated numerous
narratives and am currently archiving them in both audio and video formats as part of
Harvard’s Africa’s Sources of Knowledge Digital Library.
(2010-2015)
4 months of folkloric fieldwork, interviewing, materials collection, filming, writing,
and archival research for the Wisconsin Arts Board (2003-2004)
ACADEMIC SERVICE and ENGAGEMENT
African Language Program at Harvard -- Teacher Training, Curriculum Development,
Classroom Evaluation, Project Managing, Website Building, Film Making,
Advertising, and Program Steering (2015, 2016, 2017)
Conference Organizer for Harvard University’s African Languages in the Disciplines
Conference (2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016)
Organizer and Graduate Student Assistant for all Harvard African Language Program
Events,
including Weekly Student and Instructor Reports and the African
Languages Theater Night (2014, 2015, 2016)
Member of the Harvard AAAS Social Engagement Committee (2012, 2014, 2015)
Moderator, “Oral Arts and the Arts of Translation” Sixth Annual African Languages in
the
Disciplines Conference (April 2015)
Research Assistant for the Africa’s Sources of Knowledge Digital Library (2011-2012)
Co-Coordinator, “African Arts and Humanities: Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Issues
and
Perspectives: An informal discussion with Karin Barber, Eileen Julien, and
Biodun
Jeyifo,” Harvard University, April 2011
Human Rights Delegate to Rwanda with Global Youth Connect (Summer 2011)
Intern for ISHYO Arts Center in Kigali, Rwanda (Summer 2011)
Head Art Editor for the Madison Review - Madison's National Literature and Arts
Magazine (2004)
Copy Editor for VOICES – The University of Wisconsin’s African Literature and Arts
Journal (2004)