Fighting for Honor with Dr. T.J. Desch-Obi Part 1

Greetings Glocal Citizens!
For this two part conversation we're continuing on a narrative transformation path in conversation with another writer, author and researcher--meet Dr. T.J. Desch-Obi author of Fighting for Honor: The History of African Martial Arts in the Atlantic World. Currently based in Columbia, T.J. is of West African--NIgerian and Liberian parentage and grew up in the Midwestern United States. He received his doctorate in African history from the University of California Los Angeles and is currently a visiting professor at Universidad ICESI’s Centro de Estudios Afrodiaspóricos in Cali, Colombia. He specializes in the historical ethnography of pre-colonial Africa and the African Diaspora with a focus upon martial arts, physical culture, religion, sport, historical linguistics, and military history. His current research focuses on the social history of the machete and the Afro-Colombian machete fighting from 1848 to 1960, and twentieth century prison boxing. Dr. Desch-Obi is a permanent member of the history department at the City University of New York’s, Baruch College, where he also teaches in the Black and Latino Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies Departments.

I hope you enjoy this journey with T.J. across continents and through a world history often obscured!

Where to find T.J.?
Selected research
On YouTube

What's T.J. reading?
The Way of a Pilgrim

Other topics of interest:
Filipino Kali
Robert Farris Thompson
Beni Hasan Tomb
Nsibidi script of Nigeria
N'Golo
Holocene Climactic Optimum
Jan Vansina
Christopher Ehret
La Violencia
Phillip Zarrilli
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass

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