Africa

United States of America

Gwendolyn Carter Professor of African Studies

Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts

dnewbury@smith.edu

Department of History
Smith College
Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 USA

Rwanda, Burundi, and Eastern Congo

Research is on the social history of East and Central Africa, especially Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Congo.

Teaches all areas of African history, and in addition offer courses on Environmental History. Regional courses include: East African History,
West African History, Central African History, South African History. Also teaches both an introductory seminar on Biography in African History
and a Five Colleges Capstone course in African Studies. Thematic courses include: Environment and Imperialism in Africa, Decolonization in Africa,
Labor in Colonial Africa; and Missions and Missionaries in Africa.

"Contradictions at the Heart of the Canon: Jan Vansina and the
Debate over Oral Historiography in Africa, 1960-1980," History in
Africa 34 (2007), 213-54.

"Returning Refugees: Four Historical Patterns of 'Coming Home' to
Rwanda," in Comparative studies in society and history 47, 2
(2005), 252-285.

"Precolonial Burundi and Rwanda: Local Loyalties, Regional Royalties,"
International journal of African historical studies 34, 2
(2001), 255-314.

"Bringing the Peasant Back In: The Construction and Corrosion of
Statist Historiography in Rwanda," American historical review
105, 3 (June 2000), 832-77.

"A Catholic Mass in Kigali: Ethnicity and the Genocide in Rwanda,"
Canadian journal of African studies 32, 3 (1998), 292-328.

"Understanding Genocide," African studies review 41, 1 (1998),
73-97.

"Ecology and Political Violence: Rwanda 1994," Cultural survival
quarterly XXII, 4 (Winter 1999), 32-36.

"Trick Cyclists? Recontextualizing Rwandan Dynastic Chronology,"
History in Africa 21 (1994), 191-217.

Books include:

Kings and Clans: Ijwi Island and the Kivu Rift Valley, 1780-1840.
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993)

The Land Beyond the Mists: Essays on Identity and Authority in
Precolonial Congo and Rwanda. (forthcoming with James Curry).

African history ; Burundi ; Rwanda ; ethnicity ; genocide ; politics.