Meri Bauer is an Africanist and instructor working towards her PhD at the University of Washington’s English department. Her current research focuses on the connection between Zimbabwean literature, Zimbabwean political history and racialized capitalism. She is also working towards a Certificate in Public Scholarship and aims to make her scholarship politically and materially relevant. Her thesis research for her Master’s in international studies and public affairs investigated the economic and social aspects of the art markets in Nairobi and Cairo. She is co-founder of a group that brokers Kenyan paintings and sculptures in the US.