Fields of Interest
Biography
Christopher Tounsel is an historian of modern Sudan, with special focus on race and religion as political technologies. His first book, Chosen Peoples: Christianity and Political Imagination in South Sudan, was published with Duke University Press in 2021. Chosen Peoples explores the ways that Southern Sudanese intellectuals used Judeo-Christian Scriptures to frame their revolutionary work against the Sudanese state. Chosen Peoples was named a finalist for the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora's Outstanding First Book Award and was also a finalist for the 2022 Christianity Today Book Award (History/Biography). Dr. Tounsel's articles have appeared in journals including the African Studies Review, Journal of African American History, Journal of Africana Religions, and Journal of Religious History, among others.
Dr. Tounsel's second book, Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity, was published with Cornell University Press in 2024. Bounds of Blackness unpacks the vacillating approaches that African Americans have taken to the Sudanese state and its multiethnic populace through periods defined by colonialism, postcolonial civil wars, genocide in Darfur, and South Sudanese independence. Bounds of Blackness received honorable mention for the 2025 International Studies Association Book Award (Diplomatic Studies section).
In addition to his research, Professor Tounsel has provided commentary on current events in Sudan and South Sudan for outlets including the BBC, Al Jazeera, Human Rights Watch, and NPR's Throughline.
Support for Professor Tounsel's research has come from institutions and organizations including the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation (now Institute for Citizens & Scholars), Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Council of Overseas American Research Centers.
Professor Tounsel is the Director of the African Studies Program, an Executive Board Member of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, and an affiliate faculty member of the Comparative Religion Program.