About the Authors

Katrina Daly Thompson is Professor of African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she directs the program in African languages. Her research concerns Swahili discourse on gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and Islam. She is the author of Popobawa: Tanzanian Talk, Global Misreadings (Indiana University Press, 2017), co-editor (with Erin Stiles) of Gendered Lives in the Western Indian Ocean: Islam, Marriage, and Sexuality on the Swahili Coast (Ohio University Press, 2015), and co-author of Swahili Learners’ Reference Grammar (NALRC Press, 2001). Her research on Swahili culture, language use, and language pedagogy has appeared in numerous journals, including Agenda, Anthropology and Humanism, Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse and Society, GLQ, Language in Society, International Journal of Comic Art, Journal of African Cultural Studies, Journal of Religion in Africa, and Modern Language Journal. She has taught Swahili at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Middlebury College, and UCLA. She currently teaches two courses for self-directed LCTL learners, African 670 (Theories and Methods of Learning a Less Commonly Taught Language) and African 671 (Multilanguage Seminar). The materials in this book were created by students in these two courses between 2014 and 2017.

Danya Al-Saleh is a PhD Student in Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her doctoral research focuses on the internationalization of U.S. higher education through branch campuses in the Arabian Peninsula, specifically in Qatar. Through this research, she is examining the shifting relationship between universities and the oil and gas industry in the realm of engineering education and research. Her formal studies in Arabic over the past eight years (which have taken her to Cairo, Amman, and Doha) has provoked an interest in the shifting geographies of Arabic language education after 9/11 and the 2011 uprisings in the region.

Olivia Mulford is a Junior in the Political Science department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to Political Science, she has a certificate in African Languages and Literature, specializing in Arabic. She has studied abroad in Fez, Morocco focusing on an intensive immersion course in Arabic. Her near-future goals include attending Law school after graduation and continuing learning Arabic.

Lauren Parnell Marino is a doctoral student in Development Studies program at UW-Madison. Her research focuses on women’s participation in the labor force in East Africa, gender, empowerment, and social capital. She is currently learning Luganda. Lauren previously worked for Ashoka, Uganda Crafts 2000 Ltd., and the Interfaith Youth Core. She holds an MA in Gender, Globalization, and Rights from the National University of Ireland-Galway, where she was a George J. Mitchell Scholar, and a BS in Social Policy from Northwestern University.