My Fogo Sabbatical

Talking Coffee with
Cabo Verdean President Neves

In these challenging times for education in general and public higher education in particular, I am especially grateful that my university continues to provide sabbaticals for its tenure-track faculty and librarians. Pending final approval, my next (and final) sabbatical will be in the country of Cape Verde, primarily on the island of Fogo. I had the good fortune to visit with a travel course in January 2024 and look forward to returning for the entire Spring 2027 semester. 

I look at this as an 80/20 project, with the majority of my effort to be devoted to projects related to coffee but with attention also paid to the heritage of whaling. Ultimately, we might have the opportunity to bring recreational whaleboat rowing and racing to a country that has been a key part of whaling history and geography. 

I provide this blogpost as a way to share my project with friends and colleagues who may be interested in involvement with one or both of these projects. For now (August 2025), I provide a link to my full sabbatical proposal, whose abstract I present below. 

ABSTRACT

Cape Verde is an archipelago with deep connections to southeastern Massachusetts in general and with Bridgewater State University in particular. This sabbatical proposal describes two projects that arise from my two decades of work with the country and drawing upon two of my areas of interest. The major project is to learn more about the important but little-documented coffee industry of Cape Verde, particularly on the island of Fogo. An extended stay during the harvest season will allow me to continue sharing a global perspective on coffee with the country’s growers, processors, and policymakers. It will also allow me to learn details of Cape Verde’s unique coffee industry and to bring that story and the actual coffee to the attention of industry leaders in the United States. A secondary project intends to use recreational whaleboat rowing and sailing as a way to promote learning about Cape Verde’s maritime heritage.  

LAGNIAPPE 

This sabbatical is planned for the middle of the three-year period comprising the last three years of my tenure as a BSU faculty member and with the first three years of being a full-time resident of the New Bedford area (living across the harbor in Fairhaven). 

I am fortunate that there are several ways in which I can use this time to focus on connections between this region and Cape Verde and also the rest of Macaronesia. I am including some of those connections here, for the convenience of friends and colleagues who might be connecting in some way with my planned travel. 

Hotel Papel is a new organization that builds cultural connections through informal language programs and through the sponsorship of residencies for artists. 

Cape Verde is a nexus of many kinds of connection across the entire Atlantic world. I plan to devote a lot of my time to a singular place that is the most specific point of connection -- Cidade Velha. The very brief Grand Canyon video I recorded in 2024 is an attempt to convey the importance of this place.