Lori Hartmann (Niger) | Scholar

Lori Hartman

Lori Hartmann joined the Centre College in Danville, Kentucky faculty in 1999. She was named director of the Center for Global Citizenship (CGC) in 2020, returning to the classroom and her program as a full-time faculty member in 2022.

She was awarded the “Rookie of the Year” teaching award in 2000, and a Kirk Teaching Award in 2003. Since 2009 she has held the Frank B. and Virginia B. Hower endowed chair in international studies. During the CentreTerms of 2004, 2009, 2011, and 2015 she took groups of students to Cameroon to study politics and civil society in that Central African country. From 2006-07 and 2012, she was the director of Centre College’s program in Strasbourg, France.

Hartmann’s scholarly interests have focused on African politics, women, and development in West Africa, and the political economy of development. Her most recent publication, entitled “Allegories of Justice: crime and punishment in three African novels,” appeared in Africa Today (66/2, 2019).

In 2013, she co-published an article with former Centre student Brian Klosterboer in  African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review on the prospects for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

She has published several articles on the topic of women and development, including: “Pounding Millet during School Hours: obstacles to girls’ formal education in Niger” in the European Journal of Development Research (2011); “The Rural-Urban dynamic and implications for development: perspectives from Nigerien Women” in Journal of Contemporary African Studies (spring 2004) and “A Language of their own: Development Discourse in Niger” in  Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (Winter 2004).

Hartmann has also published works on pedagogical issues, for example, “Neoliberalism: a useful tool for teaching critical topics in political science” which appeared in PS: Political Science and Politics (Oct 2009). In 2002 her article “War as Metaphor” appeared in Peace Review: Journal of Social Justice.

From 2015-16, Hartmann spent a year in Ethiopia as a Fulbright Fellow at Wollo University conducting a comparative study of Nigerian and Ethiopian literature, with an aim of understanding how that literature reflects a sense of nationalism or national identity. Upon her return in the fall of 2016, she took over a three-year term as faculty president.

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She holds a B.A. from Denison University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Denver. She was an Ambassadorial Graduate Rotary Scholar at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, West Africa; and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger (1988-90).