Dr Christopher Vaughan
Humanities and Social Science
I am a historian of twentieth century Africa, and Co-Director of the LJMU Centre for Modern and Contemporary History. Between 2020 and 2023, I was Principal Investigator on the AHRC funded research project, 'Regionalism in East Africa, c. 1900-present', conducted in collaboration with Dr Alden Young (UCLA) and Dr Frank Gerits (Utrecht University). Together with Dr Peter O'Reilly (Politics, LJMU), we are currently working on academic and non-academic outputs from this project. A monograph will provide the first comprehensive study of regionalism as a formal political and economic project in East Africa across both colonial and post-colonial periods.
My earlier research focused on colonial rule in Darfur, western Sudan, and contributed to debates on colonial violence, the dynamics of borderland regions in Africa, and the character of African chieftaincy.
I am currently PGR Co-Ordinator for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences and I am happy to supervise research students working on twentieth century African history, especially eastern African history. To date I have supervised completed projects on British cultural diplomacy in South Africa; transtalantic dimensions of the Congo Reform Association; and the culture of political journalism in Zambia. I currently co-supervise a project on the role of colonial anxiety in shaping Britain's intelligence community in the early twentieth century. In 2020 I was awarded an Individual Teaching Excellence Award at LJMU.
Academic appointments
Reader in African History, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, 2020 - present
Lecturer in African History, Humanities and Social Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, 2014 - 2020
Lecturer in African History, History, Durham University, 2012 - 2014
Journal article
Ndawana Y, Knowles J, Vaughan C. 2021. The Historicity of Media Regulation in Zambia; Examining the Proposed Statutory Self-Regulation African Journalism Studies, 42 :59-76 DOI Author Url Publisher Url Public Url
Vaughan CM. 2018. The politics of regionalism and federation in East Africa, 1958-1964 The Historical Journal, 62 :519-540 DOI Author Url Publisher Url Public Url
Vaughan CM. 2014. ‘Demonstrating the Machine Guns’: Rebellion, Violence and State Formation in Early Colonial Darfur The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 42 :286-307 DOI Publisher Url
Vaughan CM. 2013. Violence and Regulation in the Darfur-Chad Borderland c. 1909-1956: Policing a Colonial Boundary Journal of African History, 54 :177-198 DOI Author Url Publisher Url
Vaughan CM. 'Reinventing the wheel? Local government and neo-traditional authority in late colonial northern Sudan International Journal of African Historical Studies, 43 :255-278
Chapters
Vaughan C, MacArthur J, Hunter E, McCann G. 2021. Thinking East African: Debating regionalism and federation, 1950-1977 Gerits F, Grilli M. Visions of African Unity Palgrave
Leonardi C, Vaughan C. 2016. "We are oppressed and our only way is to write to higher authority": The politics of claim and complaint in the peripheries of Condominium Sudan Hunter E. Citizenship, Belonging and Political Community in Africa: Dialogues between Past and Present :74-100 Ohio University Press. Athens 978-0-8214-2257-1 Publisher Url
Vaughan CM. 2013. The Rizeigat-Malual borderland during the Condominium: the limits of legibility Vaughan C, De Vries L, Schomerus M. The Borderlands of South Sudan Authority and Identity in Contemporary and Historical Perspectives Palgrave Macmillan 9781137340894
Books (authored)
Vaughan CM. 2015. Darfur: Colonial violence, Sultanic legacies and local politics, 1916-1956 James Currey 978-1847011114
Vaughan C, Schomerus M, Vries LD. 2013. The Borderlands of South Sudan Authority and Identity in Contemporary and Historical Perspectives Palgrave Macmillan 9781137340894