Bounds of Blackness

Bounds of Blackness explores the history of Black America's intellectual and cultural engagement with the modern state of Sudan. Ancient Sudan occupies a central place in the Black American imaginary as an exemplar of Black glory, pride, and civilization, while contemporary Sudan, often categorized as part of "Arab Africa" rather than "Black Africa," is often sidelined and overlooked. In this pathbreaking book, Christopher Tounsel unpacks the vacillating approaches of Black Americans to the Sudanese state and its multiethnic populace through periods defined by colonialism, postcolonial civil wars, genocide in Darfur, and South Sudanese independence. By exploring the work of African American intellectuals, diplomats, organizations, and media outlets, Tounsel shows how this transnational relationship reflects the robust yet capricious terms of racial consciousness in the African Diaspora.

Christopher Tounsel is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Washington. He is the author of Chosen Peoples.

With imaginative scope, depth of research, and transnational reach, Christopher Tounsel's Bounds of Blackness offers a rich, nuanced way of thinking about Sudan in terms of the politics of race and the way it was perceived during the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Nico Slate, Carnegie Mellon University:

Sharply written, richly documented, and carefully argued. In delving into the myriad connections between African Americans and the Sudan, Christopher Tounsel offers a significant and original contribution to scholarship on transnational African American history.