Assistant Professor
Office: TMH 229
Email: lyv25@txstate.edu
Phone: 512.408.8348
Education:
- University of Michigan – PhD and MA in History
- University of the Western Cape – MA in History (Museum and Heritage); PG Dip. in Museum and Heritage Studies
- University of Malawi – BA in Humanities
Specialization:
Cultural History of Southern Africa (19th century–present), Museums and Heritage Studies
Comfort Tamanda Mtotha is a cultural historian whose research redefines the understanding of collecting, curating, and preserving African heritage. Her work examines the histories of ethnographic objects in Malawi and Scotland, tracing how politically charged items were stripped of their meaning and reclassified as evidence of static tradition, first under colonial rule, and later within post-independence nation-building. A multi-award-winning scholar, her research has been nationally recognized by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and supported by institutions including the University of Michigan, the University of the Western Cape, and the Malawi University of Science and Technology.
Alongside her academic work, Mtotha has over a decade of experience in museum practice. She has curated exhibitions both independently and collaboratively at the Robben Island Museum and the Museums of Malawi, contributed to heritage conservation projects, helped shape cultural policy documents, and worked as an intern at the African World Heritage Fund. Her practice grounds her historical research in the lived realities of collection, preservation, and public engagement.
Her current book project, Collecting Malawi, is both a critical curatorship and a cultural history of Southern Africa. It recovers the political biographies of objects long miscast as relics of “timeless” African tradition and opens new avenues for rethinking museums across the continent.