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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.