Episode 27: Birders of Africa with Professor Nancy J. Jacobs

Bird Podcast with Shoba Narayan

Our guest today is Dr. Nancy Jacobs, a professor of history at Brown University. The topic of our discussion is based on her third book, a really wonderful read. It is called Birders of Africa: history of a network. He current work is on the “Global Grey Parrot.”

Nancy Jacobs is Professor of History at Brown University. She specializes in South Africa, colonial Africa, the environment, knowledge, and biography. Her recent work links her to birds.

Her third book, Birders of Africa: History of a Network (Yale University, 2016;

University of Cape Town, 2018) was an examination of the politics of knowing birds in colonial Africa.