Laura Fair is Professor of History at Michigan State University in the
U.S.A. She lived in Zanzibar for many years doing research for her first
book: Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community and Identity in
Post-abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890-1945. In this book she illustrates
how former slaves used the social and cultural tools at their command to
demonstrate their freedom from slavery and articulate alternative
visions of justice under colonialism. Her current book project is a
wide-ranging study of commercial cinema in colonial and post-colonial
Tanzania, exploring changes in exhibition, distribution and reception
over time.