Marc Epprecht

Social history in southern Africa, especially the colonial era; gender and sexuality more broadly, especially cultural constructions of non-normative sexualities (lgbti, msm, wsw, etc) and contestations around masculinities; HIV/AIDS; environment and health, especially in urban contexts in South Africa; contestations over development throughout Africa but especially Zimbabwe, Lesotho, South Africa, and KwaZulu-Natal; pedagogy for development (e.g., methods and ethics of work-study abroad programs); the politics of public history.

These are the topics of some of the student projects I’ve supervised over the last 10 years or so, from post-doctoral to honours thesis. It’s a wide range from gender and sexuality to development practice to identity and other politics to environmental issues – the common theme is my primary interest in working towards a better understanding of Africa among Canadians and to support the training of talented African students.

• LGBTQ and social media in Africa
• Black economic empowerment in South Africa
• African Pentecostal Immigrants in Toronto: Aspirations and Identities
• The Formation of the Zambian State
• The impact of COVID-19 on South African environmental charity responses to the climate crisis
• Degrowth charities’ perceptions of the future for women in South Africa
• Gender-based violence in Ghana
• #Fallist Movement in South Africa
• How activists resist political homophobias in East Africa (Uganda and Rwanda)
• ‘Green Growth’ and Chinese Investment Experiences in Kenya
• Sexuality Education in Cape Town High Schools
• Narratives Surrounding Heterosexual Transmission of HIV/AIDS in Botswana
• South African women in the anti-apartheid struggle
• Funerals and HIV/AIDS stigma in South Africa
• AIDS denialism in South Africa
• Lesbian activism in South Africa
• Intersections of Post-development theory with NGO discourse
• Voluntourism
• Women’s Movement in Zimbabwe
• Street-connected children in Mombasa
• Sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Ghana
• HIV-Tuberculosis Co-infection, South Africa
• Neoliberalism and Ecosystemic Change among Tonga Farmers in Southern Zambia
• Livelihood Strategies among Dockworkers in Durban, 1900-1951
• Gender, Politics and Social Medicine in South Africa, 1940-1959
• Empowering sexual minority groups in Uganda through a green, de-growth perspective
• Race and Municipal Water Planning in Pietermaritzburg from 1900 to 1968

Cross Appointed to the Department of History, Cultural Studies, and the School of Environmental Studies

• Iain Edwards and Marc Epprecht. 2020. Working class homosexuality in South Africa. Voices from the archive. Pretoria and Cape Town: HSRC Press, Boulder: Lynne Reinner
• Transition Discourses in Southern Africa: emerging scholarship, Canadian Journal of African Studies (2020)
• Allison Goebel and Marc Epprecht, “Decolonizing an African Art Collection in Canada? Reflections on the exhibition “Stories to Tell: Africans and the Diaspora Respond to the Lang Collection” 2016-2018,” Canadian Journal of African Studies DOI:
• Associate editor (Africa), for Howard Chiang (ed). Global Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) History. Farmington Hills: Charles Scribner (2019)
• Editor: Forum on Boy Wives, Female Husbands Twenty Years On: Reflections of scholarly activism and the struggle for human and sexual rights Canadian Journal of African Studies 52/3 (2018): 349-64
• Envisioning environmental justice in a secondary South African city, in Jane Carruthers, Nancy Jacobs, Graeme Wynn (eds). Environment, Power, and Justice in South African History Athens OH: Ohio University Press, Ecology and History series (forthcoming)
• Sexualities in Africa, In Oxford Bibliographies Online (­­obo in African Studies). Paul Zeleza (ed). New York: Oxford University Press (2020). doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199846733-0215 
• Sexuality, Secrecy, and Local Government in Early Twentieth-Century Edendale, South Africa:  Notches Blog (2017) 
• Welcome to Greater Edendale: Environment, Health, and the History of Development in an African City (MQUP, Nov. 2016)
• Michael Bailey, Paul Vasey, Lisa Diamond, Marc Breedlove, Eric Vilain, Marc Epprecht, “Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest Vol. 17, 2(2016): 45–101      DOI: 10.1177/1529100616637616
• Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa, rethinking homophobia and forging resistance. London: Zed Books (2013)
• S. Nyeck and Marc Epprecht (eds) Sexual Diversity in Africa: Politics, Theory and Citizenship. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press (in press for Fall 2013)
• Kathryn Fizzell and M. Epprecht, 'Secondary School Experiential Learning Programs in the Global South: Critical reflections from an Ontario study,'  in R. Tiessen and R. Huish (eds), When the World is Your Classroom. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (in press) 
• Rebecca Tiessen and M. Epprecht (eds), Ethical Issues in Learning/Volunteer Abroad, Special issue of Journal of Global Citizenship and Equity Education2 (Spring 2012)
• Marc Epprecht and Charles Gueboguo (eds), New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa - Special Issue of Canadian Journal of African Studies/Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, Spring 2009 43/1  
• Heterosexual Africa?: The History of an Idea from the Age of Exploration to the Age of AIDS. Athens OH: Ohio University Press, Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press 2008
• Unspoken Facts: A History of Homosexualities in Africa (Editor and principal author). (Harare: GALZ and Ann Arbor: Africa Books Collective, 2008)  
• Hungochani: The history of a dissident sexuality in southern Africa (McGill-Queen's U. Press, 2004, 2006)
• 'This matter of women is getting very bad': Gender, development and politics in colonial Lesotho, 1870-1965. (Pietermaritzburg: U of Natal Press 2000)
• Marc Epprecht and Sule E. Egya, Teaching about homosexualities in rural Nigeria: a trial run, Gender and Education 23/4: 367-384
• Advancing the right to sexual orientation and 'erotic justice' in Africa through public health strategies, African Affairs 111/443, 223-243 (April 2012)
• Sexuality, History, Africa, American Historical Review 116 (Dec. 2009): 1258-72
• The Marquis de Sade's Zimbabwe Adventure: A Contribution to the Critique of  'African AIDS' Sexualities 10/2 (2007): 241-258