Ethan R. Sanders
Historian of Global Intellectual History
with a focus on Africa and the Middle East
About
Dr. Ethan R. Sanders is an Associate Professor, and Chair of the Department of History at Regis University, a Jesuit liberal arts college in Denver, Colorado. He completed his doctoral work at the University of Cambridge where he was drawn to the emerging sub-field of global intellectual history, with a geographic focus on Africa and the Indian Ocean World. Broadly speaking, he is interested in the political and religious history of Africa and the Middle East. He has published articles and book chapters on topics such as the Zanzibar Revolution and the Cold War, missionaries and empire in Africa, Christian-Muslim relations in East Africa, African political thought, and gender and ethnicity in Zanzibar. His first book, Building the African Nation: The African Association and Pan-Africanism in Twentieth Century East Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2025) looks at the rise of African identity in East Africa and explores the thought of pan-Africanists such as James Aggrey, Paul Sindi Seme, and Julius Nyerere. His second book project, Julius Nyerere: Africa's Global Visionary of the Twentieth Century is a religious and intellectual biography of Julius Nyerere, arguably the most important African of the century. Beyond research, he views his calling as being a scholar-mentor and his dedication to working one-on-one with students is central to his vocation.
Experience
Researcher
Dr. Sanders has conducted research in dozens of archival and private collections across Africa, Europe, and North America. Primarily a textual historian, primary sources are his bread and butter. He is also passionate about teaching new scholars the ins and outs of historical method and working with sources.
Educator
As an educator, Dr. Sanders is committed to training students to "think like historians" and has taught over 18 unique courses from survey courses on Africa, the Middle East, and World History, to first-year writing seminars on the Nobel Laureates of Africa and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, to upper division courses on Inter-Religious Relations in the Middle East, Human Rights in Africa, Sustainability and Collapse in World History and the Indian Ocean World. Daily working with students brings him joy.
Mentor
Seeing his calling as a scholar-mentor, Dr. Sanders has worked closely with a number students over the years and directed many senior theses on topics as broad as evangelicalism and politics in modern America, political theology in post-revolutionary Iran, Sufis in Mozambique, and vampire films in the US. His students have gone on to pursue graduate studies at Columbia, Penn, Boston College, SOAS, the University of Birmingham (UK), University College London, Pepperdine, and the University of Denver.
Speaker
Speaking and engaging with others is central to the academic life and Dr. Sanders has given over 50 public and academic talks in the US, England, Scotland, Tanzania and Uganda, and was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at an international symposium at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Author
Dr. Sanders' work has been published in journals such as The Journal of History, African Studies Review, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, The African Review, Transformation, The American Historical Review, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, as well various book chapters in edited volumes. His first book, below, was published with Cambridge University Press, and he is knee-deep in the work on his second.
Award Recipient
He has been the fortunate recipient of over a dozen research grants that have funded his work and received a number of awards or recognitions along the way including being elected a William Carey Crane Scholar (2002), the Kenneth A. Kantzer Award in Church History (2007), the Corfield Scholarship (2008), selected to be a summer participant at the International Seminar on Decolonization held at the Library of Congress (2012), and the Regis College Outstanding Service Award (2024). He was recently selected to be a non-resident Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University. (2025)
Education
PhD in History, University of Cambridge (2013)
MPhil in Historical Studies, University of Cambridge (2008)
MA in Church History, Wheaton College (2007)
BA in History, Baylor University (2005)
Building the African Nation:
The African Association and Pan-Africanism in Twentieth Century East Africa
Reviews
"In this carefully researched book Ethan Sanders gives Pan-Africanism an altogether richer history. We usually think that national independence was the essential result of African political development; but here, in the history of the African Association, we glimpse the more capacious solidarities that early thinkers organized around. In a time such as ours, when resurgent nativisms cloud our vision and limit our charity, it is important to have a book such as this."
-Derek R. Peterson, Ali Mazrui Collegiate Professor of History and African Studies, University of Michigan
"Drawing on a wide range of institutional and private archives, Ethan Sanders offers a new way of thinking about eastern African political thought, moving us beyond the limitations of territorial nationalism. Building the African Nation fundamentally challenges our understanding of African intellectual history by showing how the African Association first imagined a united political community across eastern Africa."
-Jonathon L. Earle, Centre College
Being awarded an Academic Fellowship highlighted Dr. Kumar's status as a leading academic figure, recognized for his outstanding contributions.
Acknowledged with a Leadership Award, Dr. Kumar's visionary guidance and mentorship have been instrumental in shaping the academic community.
The Lifetime Achievement award celebrated Dr. Kumar's lifelong dedication to Computer Science and his profound impact on the academic landscape.