Professor Genova is a specialist in the history of modern Francophone West Africa. His research interests include cultural history, African cinema, post-colonialism, imperialism and decolonization, identity formation, globalization, and processes of social change. He is the author of two books, several journal articles and book chapters, as well as multiple book reviews. Professor Genova's primary research sites include Senegal, Burkina Faso, and France. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2000 where his dissertation won awards including The President's Award to Distinguished Doctoral Students (Best Dissertation). He was an Assistant Professor at Indiana State University and a visiting Senior Lecturer in African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University before joining the faculty in the History Department at OSU.

Genova's most recent book, Cinema and Development in West Africa (Indiana University Press, 2013) is a landmark study of the critical place of the cinema industrial complex in strageties of cultural and economic development in Francophone West Africa from 1945 to 1975. It explores film as both an art and industry in the context of late colonial rule, decolonization, and early post-colonial reconstruction. In that era, West Africa was home to hundreds of movie theaters patronized by a sophisticated and avid viewing public. The theaters became spaces for socialization, political networking, identity formation, and the articulation of strategies for control and resistance. The French colonial state recognized the vital role cinema could play and integrated the cinema industrial complex into its modalities of rule during the late colonial period as well as its efforts to maintain France's influence in the region after decolonization. Simultaneously, West African cultural activists saw in the cinema a vehicle for the reconstruction of African identities and an industry that could be a centerpiece in the region's process of economic development. Consequently, the cinema became a signficant site wherein the drama of decolonization unfolded. It also was a major component of post-colonial nation building. Genova's study provides a unique insight into the emergence of the global economy in the late 20th century as well as the structures that inhibited cultural and economic devleopment in Africa. It is a story of heroic efforts by activists, popular movements, and others in the face of substantial structural forces that worked to preserve the ascendancy of the capitalist West over the former colonial territories of the global South.

Genova is also the author of Colonial Ambivalence, Cultural Authenticity, and the Limitations of Mimicry in French-Ruled West Africa, 1914-1956(Peter Lang, 2004). Colonial Ambivalence is a study of the emergence of the French-educated elite during the period of French colonialism in West Africa. It examines the articulation and interaction of specific ideas about what if meant to be "French" or "African" and how those notions of identity revealed and articulated relations of power in the colonial framework. The French-educated elite operated at the nexus of French and African identities, claiming membership in both communities, participating in the difinition of the terms, and also being excluded from them by French administrators as well as "indigenous authorities" in West Africa. This study situates the questions of identity and culture at the heart of the colonial experience/process and opens a window into the history of notions of citizenship, national identity, and relations of power during imperial rule in West Africa. In addition, it offers insight into the issues of immigration politics in France, the nature of the post-colonial State in Africa, and the continued relationship between ex-colonizers and ex-colonies.

Professor Genova's next project is a biographical study of Thomas Sankara, President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. Often called the Che Guevara of Africa, Sankara led a coup in what was then Upper Volta and set out on a program of radical social change. He elevated women's status, inaugurated ambitious development projects, and sought to promote social equality. He also became a major figure on the international stage and a hero to activists across Africa and around the world. In four short years, Sankara's radical government improved the country's living standard, made it a closely watched experiment in social engineering, and became the target of reactionary efforts to detroy his government. In 1987 he was overthrown and killed by one of his closest collaborators (who remains president of the country today), widely believed to have been encouraged and supported by Cote d'Ivoire's long-time strongman, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, and France, threatened by its loss of influence over the former French colony.

Genova is continuing to publish on African cinema, development, globalization, and identity construction.

Professor Genova currently teaches courses on African, World, French, and Islamic History in addition to classes on globalization, genocide, war and revolution, and African cinema.