Bereket H. Selassie, a Renaissance Man: A Portrait of a Scholar, Jurist, Pan-
Africanist, Diplomat and Statesman is the outcome of a conference, held in May 2025
at the University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill, honoring the life-time achievements of
Dr. Bereket H. Selassie. A keynote address delivered by a prominent African scholar
and diplomat, Francis M. Deng, and 12 essays authored by scholars -- initially
presented at the conference and subsequently revised and expanded -- comprise the
core content of the book.
Each essay comprises a chapter of the book; and the chapters are grouped into three
major Parts: The first part covers Bereket H. Selassie’s roles as a jurist, constitutional
expert and public servant; the second part deals with his role as a Pan-Africanist,
scholar and intellectual, and the third part covers Bereket H. Selassie as a writer, artist
and family man. The chapters collectively provide a window wide enough to take a
glance at the wide-ranging remarkable achievements of Professor Bereket H. Selassie,
a renaissance man.

Gebre H. Tesfagiorgis holds Ph.D. and J.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin -
Madison. He held senior administrative positions at the Universities of Wisconsin and Nebraska.
He was Director of Institutional Research at Iowa State University before his retirement in 2016.
He now resides in Madison, Wisconsin. His scholarship interest is in Eritrea and the Horn region
of Africa. He has written and edited several publications on Eritrea. He was member of the
Constitutional Commission of Eritrea and Executive Editor of the Eritrean Studies Journal.