BIO SKETCH:

Sean Hanretta received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003 and has taught at Stanford since 2004. He specializes in the intellectual and cultural history of West Africa. His particular interests are the history of Islam in Africa and of African religions more generally. Past research has focused on Sufism in Francophone West Africa and his current work is on the concept of “Islamization” in colonial Gold Coast (Ghana). He also has strong interests in historical theory and methodology, the history of the African diaspora, and comparative histories of slavery. He teaches the follownig courses at Stanford: "Islam in Africa," "Power and Knowledge in Early African History," "History without Documents," and "Intellectual and Cultural History of Modern Africa." He is also part of the team of faculty teaching the History Department's new Introduction to the Humanities course, "Worlds of Islam."

COURSES TAUGHT:

• Islam in Africa
• Knowledge and Power in Early Africa
• Intellectual and Cultural History of Modern Africa

• History without Documents
  

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

• Space and Conflict in the Elisabethville Mining Camps, 1923-1938, in A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa. Florence Bernault, ed. (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2003).
• Women, Marginality and the Zulu State: Women's Institutions and Power in the Early Nineteenth Century, Journal of African History 39 (1998), 389-415.
• Muslim Histories, African Societies: the Venture of Islamic Studies in Africa, forthcoming, Journal of African History, 46:3 (2005), 479-492.
  

AWARDS:

• Mellon Fellow, 1995-1996
• SSRC Fellow, 1998-1999, 2000-2001
• Fulbright Fellow, 2000-2001