Konrad Tuchscherer (born February 16, 1970, in

Neenah Neenah ( ) is a city in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States. It is situated on the banks of Lake Winnebago, Little Lake Butte des Morts, and the Fox River approximately northeast of Oshkosh and southwest of Green Bay. Neenah's popul ...

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

) is an educator, scholar, writer, and

public intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

. Tuchscherer currently serves as the co-director of the

Bamum Scripts and Archives Project The Bamum scripts are an evolutionary series of six scripts created for the Bamum language by Ibrahim Njoya, King of Bamum (now western Cameroon). They are notable for evolving from a pictographic system to a semi-syllabary in the space of fou ...

Cameroon Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...

and is associate professor of history and director of Africana studies at

St. John's University (New York City) St. John's University is a private Catholic university in Queens, New York City, United States. It was founded in 1870 by the Congregation of the Mission (C.M., the Vincentian Fathers) with a mission to provide the youth of New York with a Ca ...

Education and career

Tuchscherer is associate professor of history and director of Africana studies at

. He received his Ph.D. from the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, where he was a

Marshall Scholar The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarshi ...

and

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the peopl ...

, and wrote a thesis on West African scripts. He attended the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. Tuchscherer is the co-director of the

at the Archives du Palais des Rois Bamoun, Foumban. He has traveled the Bamum Kingdom collecting and photographing threatened documents, created a modern archives for the storage of documents, and helped to create a functional computer font for the Bamum script. He continues to translate and inventory documents with a team of translators and has commenced an initiative to spread literacy among Bamum youth in schools. In 2006 the king of the Bamum, El Hadj Sultan Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya, recognized him for his efforts by awarding him the Bamum title "Nji" ("Master"). His work on Bamum began as a

in 2004. In 2006, Tuchscherer lived and conducted research in

Foumban Foumban or Fumban is a city in Cameroon, lying north east of Bafoussam. It has a population of 83,522 (at the 2005 Census). It is a major town for the Bamum people, Bamoun people and is home to a museum of traditional arts and Culture of Camer ...

for the year. Tuchscherer's interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century

West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...

, colonialism in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, and

Gullah The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African Americans, African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within ...

history in South Carolina and Georgia. His important research on the origin, development and spread of writing in Africa has appeared in several leading journals: the Bagam script of Cameroon in ''African Affairs'', the Vai script of

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

in ''History in Africa'', the Mende script of

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...

in ''African Languages and Cultures'' and ''Journal of African Cultural Studies'' and

Egyptian hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...

in ''Africana Bulletin''. As of 2007, Tuchscherer was writing a book entitled ''Black Scribes'' that explores the history of the written word in Africa from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to modern West African alphabets.Biography of Konrad Tuchscherer
– Bamum Scripts and Archives Project, archived from th
original
accessed 16 November 2021.

References

External links

Bamum Scripts and Archives ProjectBiography of Konrad Tuchscherer – Bamum Scripts and Archives Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuchscherer, Konrad 1970 births Living people American Africanists American people of German descent Alumni of SOAS University of London Marshall Scholars St. John's University (New York City) faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni People from Neenah, Wisconsin Linguists of Iroquoian languages