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John Aerni-Flessner

@lesothojohn.bsky.social
3.2K followers 839 following 800 posts

Prof African History MSU White Gold: tinyurl.com/ymt64kfz Dreams for Lesotho: undpress.nd.edu/9780 Publications here: tinyurl.com/ynvwp6c5 MSU FS Chair 2026-27 Lesotho, development, borders, running, Michigan Views my own

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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 3h
Can't say that the governance is the big story in it (being a pro-apartheid shill is, TBH!) but it certainly comes in as Higher Ed donations (and their return) is a key part of the story
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 7h
Yes! All of this. My next project is on a guy who was appointed to the Board at Northern in 1964 at the first point that they had an appointed board. Such a fascinating history! And he wrote a thesis about how the UM Board wanted to bring MSC under its aegis as well in the mid-19th C!
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Mia Murphy 🏳️‍⚧️ @miamurphy.com · 8h
And this is an excellent spot to call on all Michiganders to vote no on Prop 1. A new constitutional convention in this environment will be captured by partisans, and your state universities will be inevitably subject to additional Lansing control.
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Mia Murphy 🏳️‍⚧️ @miamurphy.com · 8h
Regional universities were under the State Board of Education until the 1963 Constitution, reflecting their original roles in teacher production as normal schools. That's why they have appointed boards to this day, but even that was subject to debate in the 1961-62 Constitutional Convention.
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Mia Murphy 🏳️‍⚧️ @miamurphy.com · 8h
The true origin is the legislature itself, which recommended that UM be given autonomy and an elected board in an 1840. Prior to that, the corrupt frontier legislature nearly killed UM. The independence allowed UM to flourish, and it was deemed good for the other major state-focused universities.
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Sarah Zimmerman @sjzimmerman.bsky.social · 7h
A life well lived. The Ambiguous Adventure is a banger.
lemonde.fr
Cheikh Hamidou Kane, écrivain sénégalais et figure de la littérature africaine, est mort à l’âge de 98 ans
Figure de la littérature africaine et ancien ministre, Cheikh Hamidou Kane laisse derrière lui une œuvre qui a marqué l’enseignement et la réflexion sur l’identité à travers le continent.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 9h
In you, in #Michigan, ever wondered why we elect the Boards of #Trustees for UM (Ann Arbor), MSU (East Lansing) and Wayne State (Detroit), @michiganpublic.bsky.social's Dustin Dwyer has some answers for you #HigherEd #Goverance www.michiganpublic.org/politics-gov...
michiganpublic.org
The Mids: University governing boards on your ballot?
In Michigan, we vote for the people who oversee three of our public universities. Each university also uses a different word for the same role. Regents for the University of Michigan (U of M), Trustee...
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 11h
Accusations of appointment of politically-connected but ill-qualified advisors to the #Lesotho Highlands #Water Project (#LHWP) continue under the RFP government. This is not the first time such a claim has been made (under governments of all parties): lestimes.com?p=91670
lestimes.com
Moleko appoints ‘unqualified’ RFP member to LHWP - Lesotho Times
…as Minister denies allegation, says Khali is qualified for position Mohloai Mpesi NATURAL Resources Minister, Mohlomi Moleko, has been accused of appointing a senior Revolution for Prosperity (RFP) m...
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A very happy 60th Independence Day to all #Basotho ba #Lesotho today. May the day and the year be good ones! #Lesotho60 #Khotso #Pula #Nala
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Haroon Akram-Lodhi @ahakram-lodhi.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It's the first Saturday night of the (ice) hockey season. For the first time in 56 years, I am not watching Hockey Night in Canada because @rogers denied it to the @cbc. For the first time in 89 years, no one can tune in. Shame on you, @rogers, for privatizing part of our national identity
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Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
The graph shows the cumulative number of awards made by month across this fiscal year, as compared to the last 6 fiscal years. The line for this year is total flat until June, but then finally gets up to 91 by October. In prior years the increase starts building earlier and ends on average in the 700-800 range (with variability, last year was only between 400-500).
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Here's a chart showing who funds basic research in the US. It's easy to tell that private funding cannot make up for significant cuts to government funding.
A 3D-styled pie chart illustrating the distribution of Research and Development (R&D) resources based on the NSF NCSES National Patterns of R&D Resources: 2022-23 Update.

The chart is divided into six segments, listed here in descending order of their financial contribution:

Federal Govt: The largest segment, shown in dark blue, accounts for 51% of the total, valued at $39.5 B.

Higher Ed. – Institutional: A light coral segment accounting for 23%, valued at $18.2 B.

Non-profit at Research Institutes: A dark red segment accounting for 8%, valued at $6.1 B.

Higher Ed. – Direct Philanthropy: A bright red segment accounting for 7%, valued at $5.8 B.

Business: A grey segment accounting for 7%, valued at $5.2 B.

Non-Federal Govt: The smallest segment, shown in light blue, accounting for 4%, valued at $3.2 B.
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Jack Iwashyna @iwashyna.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
NIH makes yet again new LOW number of grants report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/...
Table from NIH showing drop of nearly 8,000 grants vs 2023
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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
3. Calls for tuition free college may be untenable and anyway will likely do less for affordability than addressing housing, healthcare, childcare, and transportation costs which are major drags on affordability for students (and everyone else).
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Lauren Ashley Davis @laurenmeidasa.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Hegseth freezes hiring of civilian tenured faculty at US military academies thehill.com/policy/defen...
thehill.com
Hegseth freezes hiring of civilian tenured faculty at US military academies
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed departments on Tuesday to halt appointments of civilian staff to tenured positions at U.S. military service academies and develop hiring plans that prioritiz…
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Carolyn E Holmes @carolyneholmes.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The thing is, also, truth and reconciliation commissions are okay for the “on down” part of the equation. They have a very not-great track record on actually getting anyone in charge to sit down for a chat. If you’re looking for accountability, that’s a different conversation.
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Mining Magazine argues my report is "a compelling challenge to Anglo American's position that it is not responsible for the devastating lead pollution that blights the Zambian town of Kabwe." www.miningmagazine.com/safety/news-...
miningmagazine.com
Anglo's Kabwe role challenged in new report
A new report written by mining historian Duncan Money for Action for Southern Africa (ACTSA) presents a compelling challenge to Anglo American's position that it is not responsible for the devastating lead pollution that blights the Zambian town of Kabwe.Kabwe, home to more than 300,000 people, is one of the world's most polluted towns. It grew in close proximity to the Broken Hill lead and zinc mine and smelter, which began extraction in 1904 and closed in 1994.Anglo American denies responsibility for the pollution, claiming it was only ever involved as an indirect minority shareholder that provided certain technical services to the mine. It claims it at no stage owned or operated the mine.Money found internal company records in a Zambian archive that appear to show that the mine operated as a direct subsidiary of Anglo American, taking orders directly from the then Johannesburg-based miner.
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
We launched the report earlier this week with residents from Kabwe. It is one thing to research and present what I think is a compelling historical argument. It is another to listen to people who live with the realities of lead poisoning in the soil and their bodies.
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The question of responsibility for historic mining pollution can be an extremely difficult and contested one. In a new report for @actsa-uk.bsky.social, I use archive research to examine Anglo American's role in mining in Kabwe, one of the world's most polluted towns: actsa.org/new-report-h...
actsa.org
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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is not a very sophisticated response, and I am not a poltical theorists, but I Allen’s has two basic problems here. 1. Shes doesn’t really understand higer education, and 2. She assumes that any elected government’s actions are legitimate if not clearly illegal www.chronicle.com/article/coll...
chronicle.com
Opinion | Colleges Should Take Linda McMahon’s Call to Action Seriously
Conversation is not capitulation.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Schools in #Lesotho for the boys and men who spend much of their time #herding is featured in the USA news source NPR: www.npr.org/2026/09/27/g...
npr.org
Photos: This may be the most inspirational night school on Earth
Many thousands of boys and men in Lesotho take up the vital profession of herding but have to give up their education. A small network of schools on a shoestring budget is teaching them the ABCs.
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Robert Paulett @robertpaulett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Fucking rad.
“Land is Never a Gateway” by Nicholas Galanin, a Counterpublic installation at the St. Louis riverfront. Picture is of a  forced perspective art installation that makes it appear that the St. Louis Arch is a Native American-style drying rack for a tawed animal hide.
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IHR African History Seminar @ihrafricanhistory.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Biography can help recover history from colonial dispossession and silencing - join us next Wednesday September 30 for the first IHR African History Seminar in 26/27 with Ben Lawrance and Vusumuzi Kumalo to explore how, focusing on South African writer Dugmore Boetie, apartheid, and decolonization!
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Duncan Money @mininghistory.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Sad news. MacKenzie was a masterful historian of many fields, including the history of Southern Africa. This was informed by personal experience. He grew up on the Zambian Copperbelt where his father was clerk of works in the colonial government.
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Harare Review of Books @hararereview.com · 23/09/2026
With alt
INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL
RESEARCH

SCHOOL OF
ADVANCED STUDY
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

African History Seminar
Original Apartheid Hustler
Speakers: Benjamin N. Lawrance (University of Arizona) & Vusumuzi Kumalo (Nelson Mandela University)
Discussant: Saul Dubow (University of Cambridge)
Wednesday, September 30, 2026, 5:30-7:30 PM
(Senate House SH261 and on Zoom)
For Zoom link, visit https://www.history.ac.uk/news-events/ihr-seminars/african-history or email ihrafricanhistory@gmail.com
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Government of #Lesotho confirms that #AGOA #tariff relief for the #garment/#textile industry in the country kicked in on 2 September, pulling it back from the brink and allowed more exports to USA: newsdayonline.co.ls/agoa-extensi...
newsdayonline.co.ls
AGOA extension lifeline for Lesotho garment industry
Lesotho’s textile and apparel sector, which is regarded as the country's largest private employer has been handed fresh certainty after the United States (US) extended the African Growth and Opportuni...
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
South African novelist, memoirist, and critic @zakesmda.bsky.social is out with a new authorised biography of Chris #Hani. Can't wait to get my hands on it! www.penguinrandomhouse.co.za/product/chri...
penguinrandomhouse.co.za
Chris Hani - Penguin Random House South Africa
Chris Hani is remembered as the fearless guerrilla commander, communist leader and revolutionary whose assassination changed the course of South African
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
See you at the gate?!?!
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I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 18/09/2026
Anyway UT Austin had the largest African and African Diaspora Studies program in the country sure wish there was as much energy for it when it was running as there is now for condemning its closure.
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James McCorkle @jamesmccorkle.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The African Literature Association has its roots there with the founding members including Berenth Lindfors, Chinua Achebe, Wole Solinka, & Denis Brutus in the early 1970s in response, in part, to apartheid.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
And I misspelled two names! Sorry, it is Zoe Groves! 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
And I misspelled an author's name (sorry!). It is Julie Weise.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The authors do a really job of nuancing a very complicated history and they do some great justice to the relationship between workers from #Lesotho and #SouthAfrica which is, indeed, a fraught and complicated relationship to this day!
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Great piece from Anusa Diamon, Zoe Graves, Henry Dee, and Julie Wiese on @theconversation.com about the history of #migration to #SouthAfrica and local reactions to #immigrants. How it has changed over time. Ebbed and flowed. theconversation.com/have-south-a...
theconversation.com
Have South Africans always been hostile to migrants? Historians map a chequered history
South Africa’s history shows that anti-immigrant violence is neither an aberration nor the country’s only possible path.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
And if you want to extend your reading to a recent publication from historians of #migration into South Africa and local reaction in the 20th century, check out this piece from The Conversation Africa: theconversation.com/have-south-a...
theconversation.com
Have South Africans always been hostile to migrants? Historians map a chequered history
South Africa’s history shows that anti-immigrant violence is neither an aberration nor the country’s only possible path.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Great thread on the ridiculous claims coming out of the USA #StateDepartment this week about #SouthAfrica. tl/dr: None of what Sec. Rubio claimed were issues of concern is actually happening.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Thanks for the review! I am only just now (yesterday) seeing this. Many thanks for taking the time to read and write. Can't wait to talk more about water with you!
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Anjuli Webster @anjuliwebster.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Was delighted to review @lesothojohn.bsky.social 's wonderful book on the #Lesotho Highlands Water Project for the South African Historical Journal. 50 free eprint copies of the review available via www.tandfonline.com/eprint/IRYBC...
tandfonline.com
White Gold and Thirsty Communities: The Cold War, Apartheid, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
Published in South African Historical Journal (Ahead of Print, 2026)
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kim yi dionne (she/her) @dadakim.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I never knew how helpful it was when potential reviewers promptly declined invitations to review. Once @cwolbrecht.bsky.social posted about that and it nudged me to try to be better, so let me also present you with that as a nudge for you to -- accept review requests, or decline promptly! 🤝🏼
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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Want an example of postliberal governance? The Auburn University board sized control of the curriculum and all academic programs in June, when faculty were off-contract. Now that the academic year has started, some faculty are protesting, but many fear reprisal if they speak out.
insidehighered.com
Auburn Faculty Protest Board’s Curricular Overhaul
Three months after the Board of Trustees abolished the faculty senate and gave itself curricular control, faculty are back on campus and making their disapproval known.
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Haroon Akram-Lodhi @ahakram-lodhi.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Zambia’s cancellation of 6 passports on national security grounds raises human rights concerns, says Amnesty International jurist.org/news/?p=319833 Dr Sishuwa, whom I know, is an outstanding scholar who demonstrates what Zambian universities can produce. This is an effort to silence him
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Tomi Oladipo @tomioladipo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
My parents were born in Nigeria as British subjects. They were literally British.
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Tomi Oladipo @tomioladipo.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
One thing that makes it clear people in Europe know little about colonialism is when they refer to it as being done by ancestors. Yes it started a long time ago but it also lasted a long time. Zimbabwe got its independence from Britain in 1980.
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Sara Rich Dorman @srd.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The Editorial Board of the Journal of Southern African Studies (JSAS) is deeply concerned that the Zambian government has cancelled the passport of Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa, a member of the JSAS Editorial Board and Senior Lecturer in History at Stellenbosch University. We urge the Zambian authorities to rescind the decision and respect our colleague’s right to free movement and freedom of expression.
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Journal of Southern African Studies @jsas-journal.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
JSAS statement in support of Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa jsas.blog/statement-in...
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
To quote a mentor: "A career only makes sense in retrospect." I love that you did all of these things and made them your own with amazing contributions. It is an inspiration to keep saying yes to things that don't logically make sense (career-wise) but intuitively feel right!
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 09/09/2026
Not to brag, but our product has been foldable since 1828.
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Mark Simpson-Vos @simpsonvos.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Lonnie Bunch deserves to be understood as one of the most consequential American historians of this generation.
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John Aerni-Flessner @lesothojohn.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
To be fair, this is a Toledo team that might/should win the MAC this year, so... I still predict a losing season! But, perhaps, not quite as bad as we fear?
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