Christopher York
After attending Carleton College (B.A., 1995), unexpected turns of events led me to several years of artificial intelligence research in Austin, Texas, masters' work in the history of anthropology/cultural studies at MIT (M.S., 2001), and digital archiving research. At Yale I have continued to pursue interests in historical anthropology and history of technology, with a focus on African Studies. My orals were in Environmental History; Global Trade and Ethnohistory; and History of Anthropological Theory.
My dissertation, provisionally titled "Transformations in Value: African Iron and the Anthropology of Wealth, 1800-1930," investigates the role of everyday technologies based on iron in the formation of tropical African ideology and cultures. While much existing work on African iron focuses on its complex gender symbolism and place in the Bantu expansion, I examine it in the context of everyday Africans' productive activities, social health, and management of wealth. Successive chapters trace changes in hoe-based agriculture, trade in iron currency, initiation rites, iron bridewealth payments, and slave capture in an era shaped by the dual concern of managing wealth in people - wives, clients, slaves, and others - and exploiting ongoing European trade transformations.
I'm particularly interested in the use of unconventional sources for history: ethnography, archaeology, palynology, linguistics, and others.
My teaching interests include African Studies; Global Trade and Empire; Environmental History; Science, Technology, and Society; History of Anthropology and the Social Sciences; GIS & Digital History.
At Yale, I work with Robert Harms (History), Enrique Mayer (Anthropology), and Stuart Schwartz (History).
