Title: “Negro Canaan? Tuskegee, Cotton, and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ”

Abstract: In Bounds of Blackness, Christopher Tounsel unpacks the vacillating approaches of Black Americans to the Sudanese state and its multiethnic populace through colonialism, postcolonial civil wars, genocide in Darfur, and South Sudanese independence. In his presentation, Tounsel will discuss the colonial roots of this relationship: the Tuskegee Institute's cotton cultivation work in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.

Bio: Christopher Tounsel is an historian of modern Sudan, with special focus on race and religion as political technologies. His first book, Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan (Duke 2021), was named a finalist for the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora's Outstanding First Book Award and was a Finalist for the 2022 Christianity Today Book Award (History/Biography). His most recent book, Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity  (Cornell, 2024), has received honorable mention for the 2025 International Studies Association Book Award (Diplomatic Studies section). He has provided Sudan-related commentary for outlets including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Human Rights Watch, and NPR's Throughline.