Hermann W. von Hesse earned a PhD in African history with an Art History minor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May 2021. Hermann is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of History and the Center for African and African American Studies. He specializes in the urban, architectural and material cultural history of Africa and its global diasporas from the fifteenth century to the present. He is currently working on his book manuscript, Love of Stone Houses: Urban Merchants and Material Culture on Africa’s Gold Coast.