Cliopatria is pleased to welcome Aaron Bady to its circle. A native of southeastern Ohio, Mr. Bady earned a B. A. in English at the Ohio State University and an M. A. in literature from American University in Washington, D. C. He is currently an advanced doctoral student in English at the University of California at Berkeley. Along the way, Bady studied African literature and did two tours of duty as a primary school teacher near Arusha, Tanzania. Nearing the end of his second tour, he began to blog at zunguzungu.

Bady's blog tracks the transition of his interests, from a curiosity about African literature to an interest in the ways in which"America's Africa" and"Africa's America" have been, in his words,"mutually constitutive narratives of identity, the ways that dialogs and travels between have made both identities 'thinkable' in a shared global context." The fascination of his developing ideas has won widespread attention in the academic blogosphere. He is now a member of the literary group blog, The Valve, and has guest-posted at The Edge of the American West. More recently, he won a Cliopatria Award as the history blogosphere's Best Writer. It is a pleasure to welcome him as a member of Cliopatria.