Mentee and Advisee Testimonials

“When I first came to UCSC in 1991, I was studying music with an interest in jazz. Then, as a junior, I randomly registered for a course on African history with Professor David Anthony III, and this sent my life in an entirely new direction. From the first day of class I was blown away by Prof. Anthony’s teaching style, his dazzling lectures, his engagement with students, his enthusiasm for music, film, and popular culture, and his efforts to connect Africa’s past to the present. His lectures are some of the few that have remained etched in my memory from my undergraduate days. Within two terms of taking further courses with David, I decided to change my major to history. I specialized in European history for my BA, but it wasn’t long before I decided to commit myself to African history. After doing an MA in history at UCSC, and having the chance to work as a TA in several of David Anthony’s courses, I was accepted into the PhD program in Yale’s History Dept, focusing on African history. It was David’s teaching and mentorship that guided me in this direction. He opened the door for me, and he continued to encourage me over the years. In my own teaching now at Union College, NY, I continue to draw inspiration from my experiences in David’s classes. From the books that I assign to the way that I structure my lectures, I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to David for the model that he provided. When I wrote my first book on Islam in southern Mali, I found myself drawing considerably on many of the ideas that I first encountered in David’s classes. I remember very vividly our discussions of Maryse Conde’s Segu, the novels of Naguib Mahfouz, and lectures on the Swahili coast, and how all this shaped my understanding of Islam in Africa. In recent years, when I decided to write a biography of Thomas Sankara, I was looking for models of how to write a biography. The first place I went to look was David’s biography of Max Yergan. Although our subjects, and the kinds of sources, were very different, I kept his biography at my side as I started writing and figuring out how to tell the story of someone’s life, without falling into hagiography, and seeking to explore as many of the complexities of the biographical subject’s life and times as possible. It’s hard to overstate how important David Anthony has been in my intellectual formation. However, some 30 years removed from my undergraduate years, I still find myself drawing on the inspiration and training that he provided. I feel very fortunate, and so proud, to have been one of his students, and to carry on his own legacy in African Studies. My deepest thank you!”

Brian Peterson, Associate Professor, History Department, Union College. 
Author, Thomas Sankara: The Biography of a Revolutionary in Cold War Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2021)
Islamization from Below: The Making of Muslim Communities in Rural French Sudan, 1880-1960 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011)

“David Anthony’s influence on my career pathway has been profound—his classes are where I first felt engaged by academia and saw it as a possible line of work I could do, not just a thing to do while waiting until graduating.  Looking back now with my own experience as a prof, I have really appreciated how he taught and mentored, and aim to encourage students not to fear new knowledge, which I think is the core thing I learned and which still drives me when I’m researching and thus why I’ve tended to jump between topics as I’ve encountered new questions.”

Chris Duvall, Professor and Department Chair, Geography and Environmental Studies, University of New Mexico
Author, The African Roots of Marijuana (Duke University Press, 2019), Cannabis (London: Botanical Series, Reaktion Books, 2015)

“In David Anthony’s 20th century US history survey, on the last day of class he gave a lecture on U.S. interventions in Iran and it literally blew my mind.  I had never heard this version of the contemporary events and I was mad that I had been lied to by the U.S. media and education prior to his lecture.  It made me, then and there, decide to major in history.  It changed my life’s trajectory.”

Marisa J. Fuentes, Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and History, Presidential Term Chair, African American History, Rutgers University
Author, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2016)

“At a crucial moment in my career as a history graduate student, David Anthony inspired me in the direction of African history.  He was an excellent professor of pre-colonial African history and South African history, and his classes were templates that I use to guide my own classes.  His political activism in the anti-Apartheid movement was equally inspiring.  Looking back, I doubt that I would have succeeded as a historian had it not been for David’s influence and support.”

Thaddeus Sunseri, Department of History, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523.
Author, Wielding the Ax: Scientific Forestry and Social Conflict in Tanzania c. 1820-2000 (Athens OH: Ohio University Press 2009). Series in Ecology and History. Finalist for the Herskovits Prize 2010.
Vilimani: Labor Migration and Rural Change in Early Colonial Tanzania 1884-1915(Portsmouth NH: Heinemann 2002). Social History of Africa Series.

“Dr. David H. Anthony III is a gifted professor, author, speaker. He has been a thought leader in his field for over four decades. Whether it is with his students, mentees or attendees at his invited lectures, Professor Anthony prompts his audience to look deeper and to think ‘beyond the box.’ Dr. Anthony’s influence extends beyond his field. Under his tutelage, I learned to critically analyze history and make connection about its impact on the psyche and mental health of Black people throughout the diaspora. In my own work in psychology, I use history (familial, national and international) to help clients to better understand how the events of the past and present effect the individual and collective mental health outcomes of African descended people and other historically marginalized groups.”

Gregory Canillas, PhD. CEO, Soul 2 Soul Global. Associate Professor, Clinical-Forensic Psychology Department, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (Los Angeles).

“I wish to begin by thanking the two people who most directly influenced my intellectual trajectory, Sandra E. Greene and David H Anthony III
As an undergraduate at the UCSC, it was in David’s African History courses that I had my first opportunity to channel my childhood obsession with Africa into academic study. I can still vividly recall how at the end of each lecture the densely intricate yet expansive narrative he had woven seemed to spill over the edge of the chalkboard. A masterful teacher, my sense of what it truly means to engage students in the process of learning is rooted in his classroom. It was David who introduced me to Sandra’s work and encouraged me to pursue my graduate studies in African history with her at Cornell University; for this, I will always be in his debt.”

Carina E. Ray, Series Editor, New African Histories, Ohio University PressSeries Editor, African Identities: Past and Present, Cambridge University PressSeries Editor, Ohio Short Histories of Africa, Ohio University Press