Interview with John Johnson, May 6, 2021
Project: Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project
Interview Summary
John Johnson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a Teaching-English-as-a-Foreign-Language (TEFL) program in Somalia from 1966-69. As an international expert in Somali language and poetry and scholar in Folklore and Linguistics, he discusses learning the Somali language and teaching English using the interactive methods he learned at Teacher’s College, Columbia University. John later replaced the Teacher’s College in-country trainer when the trainer left and helped train new volunteers at Teacher’s College. He talks about his lifelong research starting in Peace Corps with Somali and foreign experts, including being a one of the founders the Somali Studies International Association and being named a patron of the Anglo-Somali Society in London. He compiled an extensive Somali archive at Indiana University where he taught, and returned to Somalia several times for sabbaticals and conferences. He discusses volunteer orientation at Taleh, the unwelcoming, ethnocentric culture in the North where he served his first year and the cosmopolitan culture of Mogadishu in the South where he served his the second and third years. He discusses courting his American girlfriend long distance and getting married and living in Mogadishu.Interview Accession
Interviewee Name
Interviewer Name
Interview Date
Interview Keyword
Peace Corps (US) Somalia (Country of Service) Education (TEFL) (Peace Corps program) 1966-69 (years of service) Post-colonial Hargeisa Mogadishu Taleh Aden (British colony) Muusa Galaal Hersi Magan ‘Issa Bogumil W. Andrzejewski John Fanselow Bob Blackburn (Peace Corps Director) Accra, Ghana University of London Mali Dayaha (School) Felix Knauth (Peace Corps Director) ‘Ismania script Aden, Yemen Somali poetInterview Rights
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All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the University of Kentucky Libraries.
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Johnson, John Interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. 06 May. 2021. Lexington, KY: Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
Johnson, J. (2021, May 06). Interview by E. Ganzglass. Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries, Lexington.
Johnson, John, interview by Evelyn Ganzglass. May 06, 2021, Peace Corps: The Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Oral History Project, Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries.
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