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A
Toast Offered by Associate Provost and Dean for Academic
Development John Davis
 Given how much David Newbury
has contributed to the College (and the Five Colleges), it
is remarkable to be reminded that he has been with us for
only a decade--but indeed, his much-anticipated appointment
to the Gwendolyn Carter chair in African Studies dates only
to 2001. How lucky we were to convince such a distinguished
scholar and teacher to join the faculty at the peak of his
career. (Although his daughter Elizabeth, a Smithie, might
also have had something to do with it!)
David was no stranger to liberal
arts colleges, having graduated from Williams in 1964, where
he studied Political Science and Economics. He subsequently
received his M.A.T. degree in Uganda, where he was a secondary
school teacher for four years. He began his work as an African
historian while residing on the continent, but by the mid-1970s
he had returned to graduate school in the United States,
receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin
in 1977 and 1979, respectively.
From this point on, there was
no stopping David. He taught at Wesleyan University and Bowdoin
College, and he was a Professeur Associé at the
Institut Supérieure Pédagogique in Zaire. From 1986 until
2001, he was on the faculty of the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, with appointments in History and Anthropology
(indeed, he is notable in his use of anthropological and
ethnographic perspectives in his historical work). At UNC,
as would be the case at Smith, David was honored with a teaching
award.
His scholarly accolades were
even more numerous, with fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation’s Program on Global
Security and Sustainability, the Social Science Research
Council, the NEH, and the Fulbright Association. Their support
was well founded, given the steady stream of David’s scholarship:
Over 45 articles (many co-authored with his wife, Catharine),
as many book reviews, and an impressive list of seven books
he wrote or co-edited, including one of his most important,
Kings and Clans: Ijwi Island and Lake Kiva Rift, 1780-1840
(University of Wisconsin Press, 1991). His most recent book
appeared just over a year ago: The Land Beyond the Mists:
Essays on Identity and Authority in Pre-Colonial Congo and
Rwanda (Ohio University Press). David’s scholarship has centered
on this region of Central Africa, examining it from a variety
of perspectives: kingship, trade, agrarian life, genocide,
ecology, decolonization, and historiography. He is quite
unusual in his chronological range, from the pre-colonial
to the present.
Recently, David made another
contribution to African History, through a particularly generous
act. When his good friend, Alison Des Forges, died tragically
in a plane crash, David put aside his own work and undertook
the editing and publishing of her unpublished Yale doctoral
thesis, which has just appeared this year. This collaborative
spirit has guided his considerable devotion to the Five College
African Studies program, the capstone of which he has taught
several times, not to mention his work on behalf of Smith’s
own African Studies and Environmental Science and Policy
programs. David was also a Five College 40th Anniversary
Professor, teaching classes at Mount Holyoke, Amherst, and
Hampshire Colleges. Together with Catharine, he served for
five years as Book Review Editor of the African Studies Review,
yet another Five College project.
David will not rest in
retirement. He currently has six projects he hopes to complete,
including a study of the recent political history of Central
Africa and a long-delayed book on the famine in eastern Rwanda
in 1927-28. We still have much to learn from David Newbury. |
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