David Schoenbrun

African history before the 16th century

Office: 102A Harris
Phone: 847-491-7278
E-mail: dlsnorthwestern.edu

David Schoenbrun (PhD UCLA, 1990) specializes in African history before the 16th century and in non-traditional sources for writing history. He has received awards from the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright, the National Humanities Center, and the American Council of Learned Societies. His first book, The Historical Reconstruction of Great Lakes Bantu Cultural Vocabulary: Etymologies and Distributions appeared in 1997. His second book, A Green Place, A Good Place: Agrarian Change, Gender, and Social Identity in the Great Lakes Region to the 15th Century, was named a 1999 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. He has also published articles in the Uganda Journal, Azania, Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, Journal of African History, International Journal of African Historical Studies, History Compass, History and Theory, and the American Historical Review. He has worked in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire), Ghana, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and England. These days he is preparing a new etymological dictionary of Mashariki Bantu in support of a new history of violence, vulnerability, and authority in the Great Lakes region from 800 to 1800. In 2005-2006, he was a Senior Fellow at the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities at Northwestern. He is a former Interim Director of the Program of African Studies at Northwestern (2001-2003) and of the African Studies Program at the University of Georgia (1996-1997) and a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Journal of African History and the International Journal of African Historical Studies.

Curriculum Vitae