Christian Alvarado, Ph.D.

I am an interdisciplinary scholar of African Studies with a focus in the continent's 19th and 20th century culture, history, and literary production. I am particularly interested in the “era of decolonization,” a period spanning roughly the end of the Second World War to the mid-1970s. I work across linguistic, national, and disciplinary silos in order to better understand the continent’s embeddedness in transnational and global circuits in both the past and present. I am currently President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in the African American and African Studies Department at the University of California, Davis.

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A native of Las Vegas, I moved to California after completing my Bachelor’s degree at the University of Nevada in Reno. As an economics major during my undergraduate years, I was fascinated by the global dimensions of logistics, finance, and economic forces both “micro” and “macro.” It was not in my business school curriculum, however, that I found the most compelling lines of inquiry into these kinds of relationships—it was in the history classes that filled my elective requirements. Courses in Irish, Russian, American, and World history captivated me in ways that I had never experienced before. I felt called to pursue this in earnest and began the process of seeking out graduate training in historical studies. I moved to southern California in the summer of 2017, where I hoped to establish residency and apply to programs that would align with my dedication to rigorous scholarship, public engagement, and strong mentorship. I was thrilled to be accepted into the Master’s program at San Diego State University, where I was supervised by Drs. Eve Kornfeld, Edward Beasley, and William Nericcio.. 

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These years were invigorating and exhausting ones. I worked full-time as a carpenter in order to put myself through the program at SDSU. Early mornings, long workdays, and evenings spent either in class or studying were a challenge to balance. What sustained me then, and what continues to drive me now, was the feeling I had when I came across something that changed the way I looked at the world—what I thought it was, and what I imagined it could be. Sometimes this came in the form of a text. Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, V.Y. Mudimbe’s Idea of Africa, and a trove of books about the history of the University of Ibadan in Nigeria all realigned my thinking during this period. But it was also the community of scholars, mentors, and colleagues I was fortunate enough to be in contact with that had this effect on me. Challenging conversations, self-reflection in response to the views of my peers, and the patience and generosity of others; these things changed the way I looked at the world more than any text. They remain at the core of my commitment to academic work, care in the process of knowledge production, and service to the communities I am a part of.

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The interdisciplinary inclinations of my Master’s work led me to pursue doctoral studies in the History of Consciousness Department at UC Santa Cruz. A bastion of innovative scholarship since its inception, HistCon has always been a place of liminal exchange and navigation. Some of its scholars work at the boundaries or on the fringes of established fields—others participate in the formation of new ones entirely. During my time there, the department was a space where I felt free to probe unconventional questions and lines of inquiry in the study of Africa and its cultural politics, examine theoretical approaches to the semiotic dimensions of historical studies, and consider what it means to participate in the fields that comprise African Studies today. My advanced coursework in African Studies, History, Literature, and Cultural Studies allowed me to establish a generative foundation for my work. So did the ability to study languages in an institutional setting, a privilege that I latched onto with zeal. But again, it was the people that I was surrounded by that taught me the most. My advisors had disciplinary anchors in a range of fields: Eric Porter in HistCon and American Studies, Gina Dent in Feminist Studies, Marc Matera and Myles Osborne in British and African History. Each taught me not only how to be a better scholar and produce rigorous work, but what it looked like to be a generous mentor, a careful reader, and an advocate for others—values I intend to carry forward as I move into the next phase of my career.

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