Zebulon Dingley

Assistant Professor

Zebulon Dingley is an historian of politics and the occult in East Africa, focusing in particular on ritual and rumor on the Kenyan coast from the nineteenth century to the present.

He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Chicago in 2018. His research explores how rural coastal Kenyans have engaged a range of unseen forces, from spirits to the state.

His current book project, Mumiani: Bodies, Rumor, and Ritual History in Coastal Kenya, analyzes local rumors about blood and body-part thieves as archives of political transformation, medical innovation, and ecological disruption from the precolonial period to today.

Education

Ph.D. The University of Chicago, 2018

M.A. The University of Chicago, 2011

B.A. The University of Chicago, 2007

Research Interests

Ritual and rumor

Divination

Sacrifice

Kinship

Witchcraft and anti-witchcraft

Slavery

Islam

Courses Taught

Maritime Cultures of the Indian Ocean World

Pre-Colonial Africa

Witchcraft in African History

African Political History

Honors and Awards

Frederick Douglass Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Rochester (2018–2020)

W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Predoctoral Fellowship, Harvard University (2017)

Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (2017)

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2014)

Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (2013)

Publications

“The Transfiguration of Lukas Pkech: Dini ya Msambwa and the ‘Kolloa Affray’.” Journal of Religion and Violence 8:1 (2020), 5–34.

“Rumor and History Revisited: ‘Mumiani’ in Coastal Kenya, 1945.” Journal of African History 59:3 (2018), 381–98.