Dr. Niati holds a PhD in French from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He completed his BA in journalism and Public Relations at the School of journalism in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and his MA in French at the University of Iowa. Before coming to the US, he was a professional journalist in his home country for many years. After his doctorate in French, he went on to teach French at Houghton College, New York as an assistant Professor and at South Carolina State University as an Associate Professor. Dr. Niati’s primary research interests focus on Human Rights in the 18th-Century French Literature (Enlightenment Period) and on African Oral Narratives.

Selected publications include:

• L’exil: Mémoires d’Afrique et d’Amérique, Editions Lokole, Kinshasa 2015 (about his experience as a journalist confronting Mobutu’s corrupt regime)
• Narrative Strategies in African Folktales: Revisiting the Russian Formalism Theory, Baltimore, 2012
• Contes du Mayombe en Afrique Centrale co-edited with Alexandre Khonde Thamba. Kinshasa: Centre protestant d’éditions et de diffusion (CEDI), 2010.
• He Ate the Yam and the Child : 25 Yombe Folktales. West Conshohocken, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2008.
• More than a hundred University Libraries around the world have holdings of his Voltaire confronte les journaliste : la tolérance et la liberté de la presse à l’épreuve. New York: Peter Lang, Inc. 2007.

Courses Taught

• Introductory French Language courses: French 109; 110, 122
• French 209: Reading & Written Expression
• 210: Oral Communication
• 309: Intro to French Text

In addition, he has taught courses for the French track of the International Master of Business Administration (IMBA) program at the Darla Moore School of Business.