Derek R. Peterson

Derek R. Peterson (born May 13, 1971) is an American historian specializing in the cultural history of East Africa. He is currently a professor of history and African studies at the University of Michigan.^[1]

He was the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" in 2017.^{[2][3][4][5][6]}

Education and career

Born May 13, 1971, Peterson is from Maine, New York and attended Maine–Endwell High School.^[7] He studied history and political science at the University of Rochester, graduating in 1993. His interest in African studies was sparked by a trip to Kenya in his sophomore year, and at Rochester he studied under African scholars Elias Mandala and Sam Nolutshungu. After graduating, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to study in Kenya for a year. He then went on to the University of Minnesota, studying with Allen Isaacman, and obtained his PhD in 2000.^[8]

Peterson taught at the College of New Jersey between 2000 and 2004.^[2] Between 2004 and 2009 he was the director of Centre for African Studies at the University of Cambridge,^[9] where he edited a series of monographs on African studies,^[10] and initiated an academic exchange programme between Cambridge and universities in Africa.^[9]

He took a position at the University of Michigan in 2009, joining its newly founded African Studies Center (ASC).^[4] Peterson teaches undergraduate courses on African literature, African Christianity, and family history in a global context.^[11]

Peterson has been a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame's Kellogg Institute,^[12] was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2016,^[13] and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.^[14] He won the African Studies Association's 2013 Hersokovits Prize for his book Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival.^[15]

Selected publications

Monographs

• Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival: A History of Dissent. Cambridge University Press. 2012.
• Creative Writing: Translation, Bookkeeping, and the Work of Imagination in Colonial Kenya. Heinemann. 2004.
• A Popular History of Idi Amin's Uganda. Yale University Press. 2025.

Edited volumes

• Peterson, Derek R.; Hunter, Emma; Newell, Stephanie, eds. (2016). African Print Cultures: Newspapers and their Publics in Modern Africa. University of Michigan Press.
• —; Gavua, Kodzo; Rassool, Ciraj, eds. (2015). The Politics of Heritage in Africa: Economies, Histories, and Infrastructures. Cambridge University Press.
• —, ed. (2010). Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa and the Atlantic. Ohio University Press.
• —; Macola, Giacomo, eds. (2009). Recasting the Past: History-Writing and Political Work in Modern Africa. Ohio University Press.
• —; Wolhof, Darren, eds. (2002). The Invention of Religion: Rethinking Belief in Politics and History. Rutgers University Press.