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History Department

G. Thomas Burgess, Associate Professor
                       

East Africa, Contemporary Africa, Conflict in Africa, US and Africa, Generation, Governance, Islam, and Memory in Africa

The United States Naval Academy, 572 Holloway Road, Annapolis, MD 21402 gburgess@usna.edu         (410) 293-6275

Education:

Ph.D. – Indiana University

M.A. – Indiana University

B.A. – Brigham Young University

Books:

Sons and Fathers: The Making of Men in Africa, Cambridge University Press, under contract

Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar: the Memoirs of Ali Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2009.

Youth and Citizenship in East Africa, Africa Today, 51, 3 (April 2005). Guest editor of a theme issue on youth and citizenship in East Africa.

World Societies since 1500, Tapestry Press, 2001.

Mambo: Swahili Lessons I, Tapestry Press, 2001.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

"The Rise and Fall of a Socialist Future: Ambivalent Encounters Between Zanzibar and East Germany in the Cold War," in Moorings and (Dis) Entanglements between Africa and East Germany during the Cold War, ed. by Eric Burton, Anne Dietrick, Immanuel R. Harisch, and Marcia C. Schenck, Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2021, 169-192.

"Mao in Zanzibar: Nationalism, Discipline, and the (De)Construction of Afro-Asian Solidarities," in Making a World After Empire: the Bandung Moment and Its Political Afterlives, ed. by Christopher Lee.  Second edition.  Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2019, 196-234.

“Memory, Liberalism, and the Reconstructed Self: Wolfango Dourado and the Revolution in Zanzibar,” in Social Memory, Silenced Voices, and Political Struggle: Remembering the Revolution in Zanzibar, ed. by William Bissell and Marie-Aude Fouere, Mkuki na Nyota Press, 2018.

"The Zanzibar Revolution and its Aftermath," in Thomas Spear, ed., Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, March 2018.

"Introduction" to Generations Past: Youth in East African History, ed. by Andrew Burton and Helene Charton-Bigot. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010, 1-24.

"To Differentiate Rice from Grass: Youth Labor Camps in Revolutionary Zanzibar," in Generations Past: Youth in East African History, ed. by Andrew Burton and Helene Charton-Bigot. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2010, 221-236.

"Memories, Myths, and Meanings of the Zanzibari Revolution," in War and Peace in Africa, ed. by Toyin Falola and Raphael Chijioke Njoku, Carolina Academic Press, 2010, 429-450.

"Mobility and Discipline: Colonial Age Discourse in Tanzania," in Rethinking Age in Africa: Colonial, Post-colonial and Contemporary Interpretations of Cultural Representations, ed. by Mario Aguilar, Trenton: Africa World Press, 2006, 45-82.

"A Socialist Diaspora: Ali Sultan Issa, the Soviet Union, and the Zanzibari Revolution," in Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: 300 Years of Encounters, ed. by Maxim Matusevich.  Trenton: Africa World Press, 2006, 263-292.

"An Imagined Generation: Umma Youth in Nationalist Zanzibar," in In Search of a Nation: Histories of Authority and Dissidence from Tanzania: Essays in Honor of I.M. Kimambo, eds. Gregory Maddox, James Giblin, Y.Q. Lawi.  London: James Currey Publishers, 2005, 216-249.

"The Young Pioneers and the Rituals of Citizenship in Revolutionary Zanzibar," Africa Today, 51, 3 (April 2005), 3-29.

"Introduction: Youth and Citizenship in East Africa," Africa Today, 51, 3 (April 2005), vii-xxiv. 

"Imagined Generations: Constructing Youth in Revolutionary Zanzibar," in Vanguards or Vandala: Youth, Politics and Conflict in Africa, ed. by Jon Abbink and Ineke van Kessel.  Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004, 55-78.

"History of an Ideal," in Democratic Transitions in East Africa, ed. by Paul Kaiser and F. Wafula Okumu.  London: Ashgate Press, 2004, 13-37.

"Cinema, Bell Bottoms, and Miniskirts: Struggles Over Youth and Citizenship in Revolutionary Zanzibar," International Journal of African Historical Studies, 35, 2 (2002), 287-313.

"Remembering Youth: Generation in Revolutionary Zanzibar," Africa Today, 46, 2 (April, 1999), 29-52.

Book Reviews:

Gaim Kibreab, The Eritrean National Service: Servitude for 'the Common Good' and the Youth Exodus, James Curry Press, 2017.

Ronald Aminzade, Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Post-Colonial Africa: The Case of Tanzania, Cambridge University Press, 2013, African Studies Review, 2016.

James Brennan, Taifa: Making Nation and Race in Urban Tanzania, Ohio University Press, 2012,The American Historical Review, 119, 2 (April 2014), 658-659.

Kelly Askew, Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 37, 3 (2004), 392.

Journal Referee:

Oxford Research Encyclopedia (2019, 2020), Journal of African History (2010, 2011, 2013, 2016), The Canadian Journal of History (2016), International Labor and Working Class History (2016), The Journal of Eastern African Studies (2013), History in Africa: A Journal of Method (2012), African Security (2012), African Affairs (2007), International Journal of African Historical Studies (2010, 2005, 2002), Africa Today (2004)

Manuscript in Preparation:

Race, Citizenship, and Narrative in Africa: Zanzibar in the Age of Revolution

Selected Invited Lectures:

"The World According to Kweupe: Zanzibari Newspaper Narratives of the Cold War," Africa Institute Conference, "Reimagining Mobilities/immobilities in the Indian Ocean," Sharjah, UAE, December 2022.

"Seif Sharif Hamad: The Making of a Counter-Revolutionary," Maalim Seif Foundation Annual Conference, Zanzibar Town, Tanzania, October 2022.

"Race, Revolution, and Life History in Zanzibar," Georgetown University, Doha, Qatar (via Google Meet), March 2022.

"Zanzibar and the Drive for Autonomy," US Department of State, May 2020.

"Cosmopolitan Conundrums: Post-Colonial Student Diasporas in the Fiction of Abdulrazak Gurnah," Martin Luther University, Halle, Germany, September 2019.

"Seif Sharif Hamad and the Politics of Communal Memory in Zanzibar," University of Halle, Halle, Germany, June 2018.

“The ‘Cuba of East Africa:’ Zanzibar in a World of Socialist Exchange,” Tübingen Üniversitat, Tübingen, Germany, July 2015.

“War and History in the Horn of Africa,” US Naval War College, March 2013.

“Narratives of the Revolution: Memoir and the Making of History in Zanzibar,” University of Florida, September 2012.

“Memory and Revolution in Zanzibar,” George Mason University, March, 2012

“Islam in East Africa,” Cornell University, April 2010.

“Tanzania and the Global Financial Crisis,” South African Institute for International Affairs, Johannesburg, South Africa, January 2010.

“Islamic Reform and Radicalism in East Africa,” El Cano Institute, Madrid, Spain, July 2008.

"The History of Youth in East Africa: A Retrospective," British East Africa Institute Conference on Youth in East Africa, Nyeri, Kenya, July 2006.

"Memory and Language in Postcolonial Zanzibar," Oxford University, June 2006.

"The Visual Power of African Nationalist Spectacles: Halaiki in Zanzibar," School for Oriental and African Studies, University of London, June 2006.

"Discipline in the African Nationalist Imagination," Texas Southern University, April 2003.

"Culture, Connections, and the Longue Duree on the Swahili Coast," Rice University, April 2003.

Selected Presentations:

"Memory, Liberalism, and the Constructed Self: Wolfango Dourado and the Revolution in Zanzibar," Annual Conference of the African Studies Association, Chicago, November 2017.

“Resented Communities: The Wretched of the Earth Revisited,” Sixth Annual ECAS Conference, Paris, France, July 2015.

“Islands of Images: Revolutionary Zanzibar’s Visual Aesthetic,” Fifth Annual ECAS Conference, Lisbon, Portugal, June 2013 (accepted).

“Writing the Biography of a Generation,” Annual Conference of the African Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2011.

“Socialist Cosmopolitanism: Eastern Europe and the Construction of Knowledge in East Africa,” Annual Conference of the Association of Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies, Washington DC, November 2011., East European, & Eurasian Studies

“Reflections on the Postcolony: The Pedagogical State in Africa,” Fourth Annual ECAS Conference, Uppsala, Sweden, June 2011.

“The Pedagogical State: Tanzania in the Age of Ujamaa,” African Studies Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, November 2009.

“Zanzibar’s Influence on Postcolonial Tanzania,” African Studies Association Annual Conference, Chicago, November 2008.

"Marxist Insurgency, Racial Pogrom, Tanganyikan Invasion, or Divine Justice? Myths and Meanings of the Zanzibari Revolution," University of Texas at Austin, March 2008.

"Memories of the Zanzibari Revolution," Zanzibar International Film Festival, Tanzania, 2007.

"Youth Labor Camps in Revolutionary Zanzibar," British East Africa Institute Conference on Youth in East Africa, Nyeri Kenya, July 2006.

"A Field of Dreams: Revolutionary Festivals in Zanzibar," Annual Conference on the African Studies Associations, November 2005.

"Mao in Zanzibar: The Construction of Knowledge in a Cosmopolitan Island Society," Empires and Cultures Workshop, "Rethinking Afro-Asian Connections in the Twentieth Century," Stanford University, May 2005.

"A Vanguard Generation: Ali Sultan Issa and the Paradise Imperative," Annual Conference of the African Studies Association, November 2003.

"Imagined Generations: Constructing Youth in Revolutionary Zanzibar," Conference on Youth and Politics in Africa, University of Leiden, Netherlands, 2003.

Selected Reports:

"The End of the Affair: Tanzania's Drift from Multipartyism," United States Department of State, 2007.

"The Struggle for Human Rights in Tanzania," U.S. Embassy, Tanzania, 2007.

"Tanzania's Political Impasse," United States Department of State, September 2006.

"The Revolution vs. People's Power in Zanzibar," United States Department of State, September 2005.

"The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Tanzanian State," United States Department of State, August, 2005.

"Democratization in Zanzibar?" United States Department of State, 2004.

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