Marissa J. Moorman is a professor of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and her research focuses on politics and culture in colonial and independent Angola. Moorman’s work explores different media and how their uses, practices, the meanings people develop around them, and their relationship to power shift over time. She is an author of two books: Powerful Frequencies: Radio, State Power, and the Cold War in Angola, 1931-2002 (Ohio University Press, 2019) and Intonations: a Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, 1945-Recent Times (Ohio University Press, 2008) and is at work on a book about the Luanda Trial of Mercenaries in 1976. Moorman is an editor of The Journal of African History, on the editorial collective of The Radical History Review, and a member of the Africa is a Country editorial board. Her opinion pieces have been published in Jornal de Angola, Novo Jornal, and The Guardian.
A word from Vlad Dima, Chair of African Cultural Studies:
We are excited to welcome Marissa Moorman to the Department of African Cultural Studies. As a nationally and internationally recognized scholar in Angolan Studies, Southern African History, and African Media Studies, Marissa will help us complete our intellectual expertise on the continent of Africa and make an invaluable contribution to our course offerings in those areas.