Janet J Ewald
| Title: | Associate Professor |
| Office Location: | 316 Carr Bldg |
| Office Phone: | 919 684 4280 |
| Email Address: | jewald@duke.edu |
Education
- PhD University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1982
- MA University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975
- BA University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1973
Research Interests
My specialty in the history of Africa has led me, in both my teaching and research, to explore how Africans participated in the major currents of world history since about 1700. My first book Soldiers, Traders, and Slaves: State Formation and Economic Transformation in the Greater Nile Valley, 1700-1885 uses oral traditions as well as written sources to reconstruct how people in a dangerous frontier zone responded to predatory empires, commercial capitalism, slave raiding, and militant Islam. The book, as well as several articles, analyzes not only how people constructed a small kingdom but also how they continually reconstructed their memories of that kingdom. Following the paths of slaves from the Nile valley led me to the shores of the Indian Ocean and beyond. I have now embarked on a second major project, "Motley Crews: Indian and African Seafarers on English Vessels in the Indian Ocean, c. 1600-1900." The project analyzes two forms of labor control--indentures and slavery--in a maritime setting. Not only Africans, but also Asians and Europeans, are the main actors; center stage is the Indian Ocean bounded by the crescent of shore from Bombay through the Arabian coast to the African Swahili coast; the action takes lace in the tumultuous centuries, especially after 1750, when a system of slavery rose and fell; Asian and African autonomy gave way to European dominance; and steam engines replaced sailing vessels on the ocean.
Awards/Recognitions
American Council for Learned Societies; Carter G. Woodson Institute Fellow; Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow; National Humanities Center Fellow; American Institutes for Yemeni Studies fellowship for research in Yemen; Trent Foundation; American Philosophical Society; various awards for developing courses in Atlantic and Indian Ocean history.
Miscellaneous
I enjoy reading novels and discussing them; following Carolina Hurricanes hockey and Duke women's basketball; walking; swimming; communing with my cats; cooking, especially vegetarian and my own versions of Asian cuisine; traveling.
Awards, Honors, and Distinctions
- Fellow, National Humanities Center, 1993-1994
- Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January-June, 1989
- Fellow, ACLS/Ford, July-December, 1988
- Post-doctoral Fellow, Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies, University of Virginia, July, 1985-June, 1986
- Social Science Research Council International Doctoral Research Fellowship, 1977-1979
- NDEA Title VI: Arabic study at the University of Wisconsin, 1974, 1975, 1981
- Detling Fellowship, University of Wisconsin, Graduate School, 1973
- Graduated with Distinction, 1973
Recent Publications
Books in Progress- J.J. Ewald, Motley Crews: African and Indian Seafarers on English Vessels in the Eastern Trade, c. 1613-1900. (2006). a book-length project
- Janet J. Ewald. "Slave Trade: The Indian Ocean, c1750-1880." Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World (Spring, 2008).
- "Building a State and Struggling Over Land: The Taqali Kingdom, 1750-1884"." State, Land, Literacy, and the State in the History of Sudanic Africa (2003).
- "The Turkiyya." The Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Africa (forthcoming 2003).