History Department

Thomas Burgess, Assistant Professor

East African History; Contemporary Africa

Email:  gburgess@usna.edu

Education:

  • Ph.D. - Indiana University
  • M.A. - Indiana University
  • B.A. - Brigham Young University

Recent Publications:

Zanzibar Voices: Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar: the Memoirs of Ali Sultan Issa and Seif Sharif Hamad, forthcoming, James Currey Publishers/Ohio University Press, 2008.

"Mao in Zanzibar: Discipline, Development and African Nationalists' Search for a Usable Future," in Bandung and Beyond, ed. by Christopher Lee.  Columbus: Ohio University Press, under review.

"Memories of the Zanzibari Revolution," Journal of the Zanzibar International Film Festival, 4 (2007).

"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.

"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.

"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.

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

"Introduction: 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.

"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.

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

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

World Societies Since 1500, Tapestry Press, 2001.

Mambo: Swahili Lessons I, Tapestry Press, 2001.

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

 

Manuscript in Preparation:

"Islands of Discipline: Youth, Revolution, and Power in Zanzibar" - A revision of his dissertation.

 

Selected Invited Lectures:

"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 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" St. Cross College, 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.

"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, 2005.

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

"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:

"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.

Panel Organizer/Chair, "Courts, Fields and Verandahs: Space, Spectacle, and the Law in Zanzibar After the Revolution," Annual Conference of the African Studies Association, 2005.

"Mao in Zanzibar: The Construction of Knowledge in a Cosmopolitan Island Society," Empires and Cultures Workshop, "Rethinking Afro-Asian Connections During 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.





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