IOWC PhD Student: Steven Serels

Steven Serels, a native of New York City, is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at McGill University in Montreal. He holds a BA in Fine Arts from The Cooper Union in New York City, where he studied photography and sculpture, and an MA in history from McGill University. His masters research paper, entitled Town Planning for Empire: British Colonial Planning and Re-Planning of Khartoum, the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1898-1914, examined the intellectual resources brought to urban planning during the early years of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the ways in which the definition of authoritative knowledge shared by colonial administrators shifted as colonial state-building initiatives were abandoned in favor of economic development projects. Steven's major field of interest is the history of British Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, notably colonial Sudan, and the history of Western medicinal practices in colonial Africa.

Steven's PhD dissertation, which is tentatively titled Feasting on Famines: Food Insecurity and the Making of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1883-1930, examines the role of food insecurity and human-environment interaction in the expansion of British power (political, military and economic) in the Sudan and, by extension, the Upper Red Sea from the period following the withdrawal of the Egyptian administration of Nilotic Sudan to the start of the Great Depression. Steven is particularly interested in examining British efforts to manipulate grain markets as both a military strategy and a means of spurring economic development.

Steven has received a number of awards. In 2010, he was awarded a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He has also received a Research Fellowship from the Indian Ocean World Centre (2007-2010); a Graduate Student Travel Award (2011) and a Greaduate Research Travel Award (2011), both from the Faculty of Arts, McGill University; a Graduate Fellowship from the Centre for Developing Area Studies (2008);the McCall/MacBain Graduate Award (2010) and Daisy A. Lartimer Memorial Prize in History (2007), both from the Department of History at McGill University. In addition, Steven received a four year full tuition scholarship from the Cooper Union (2001).

2007 "Political Landscaping: Land Registration, the Definition of Ownership and the Evolution of Colonial Objectives in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1899-1924." African Economic History 35 (2007): 59-67.

2011 "Watering Slaves and Growing Grain: The Expansion of Slave Labour in Northern Sudan, 1896-1913." Paper presented at the International MCRI Conference, "Enslavement, Bondage and the Environment in the Indian Ocean World," IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 28-30 April 2011.

2011 "Food Insecurity and Economic Development in the Sudan, 1885-1925." Paper presented at the IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 31 March 2011.

2010 "Cotton Before the Condominium: Cotton Cultivation, the Sudanese Slave Trade and British Influence in the Sudan, 1884-1890." Paper presented at the Conference on Commercial Agriculture in Africa as an Alternative to the Atlantic Slave Trade, German Historical Institute, London, England, 23-25 December 2010.

2010 "Food Insecurity and British Territorial Expansion in the Sudan, 1884-1913." Paper presented at the Third Annual IOWC Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference on Africa, IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 26 April 2010.

2009 "Salt for Slaves: The Slave Trade at Rowayeh, the Sudan, 1880-1913." Paper presented at the International Conference, "Bridging Two Oceans: Slavery in Indian and Atlantic Worlds," Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull, Iziko Slave Lodge, Cape Town, South Africa, 19-22 November 2009.

2009 "Deserts of Interests: The Natural Landscape and British Imperial Interest in the Sudan, 1884-1900." Paper presented at the Kulturpsychologisches Kolloquium, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 8 June 2009.

2009 "Cattle Tickets and Animal Quarantine: The Movement of Cattle Along the Western Red Sea Coast and the Establishment of Colonial Sovereignty, 1898-1903." Paper presented at the AEGIS Conference, Leipzig, Germany, 4-7 June 2009.

2009 "X-rays and Heat Waves: The Journal of Tropical Medicine and the Quest for a ‘Prescription’ for a Healthy Tropical Wardrobe." Paper presented at the CSHM Conference, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, 29-31 May 2009.

2009 "Indigenous Debt and the Spirit of Colonial Capitalism: Debt and Dependence as a Colonial Economic Development Strategy in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1898-1924." Paper presented at the IOWC International Conference, "Debt and Slavery: The History of a Process of Enslavement," IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 7-9 May 2009.

2009 "Trade-Alliance-Betrayal: The Import/Export Trade at Suakin and the Creation of Colonial Economic Policy in the Sudan, 1890-1905." Paper presented at the Second Annual IOWC Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference on Africa, IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 27 April 2009.

2009 "The Great International Tropical Underwear Survey: Technologies of Personal Hygiene in the 'Tropics' and the Limits of Consensus amongst British 'Tropical Medicine' Specialists, 1895-1913." Paper presented at the Society for the Social History of Medicine (SSHM) Post-Graduate Conference, "Medicine and Helath Care: History and Context," University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 16-28 April 2009.

2008 "The Acclimatization of Experts in Tropical Laboratories: Andrew Balfour, the Wellcome Tropical Research Laboratory and the Contemporary Study of 'Medicine and the Colonies'." Paper presented at International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC) Conference, "Crossing Borders in the History of Technology," University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 5-10 August 2008.

2008 "The Nutritional Content of Wage Labor: The Politics of Nutrition Science in Britain's East African Colonies, 1926-1939." Paper presented at 2008 Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS) Conference, "Reflecting on Africa's Riches: Resources, Conflict and Exploitation," University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, 1-4 May 2008.

2008 "Latourization of Africa: Malaria Control and the Limits of Actor-Network Theory." Paper presented at the First Annual IOWC Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference on Africa, IOWC, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 28 April 2008.

2010 "Prescriptions for Healthy Living in the British Tropics, 1897-1913." Exhibition held at the Osler Library, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1 April–6 September 2010.

2009 "Debts/Drugs/Delinquency: Philanthropy and Prostitution in Montreal, 1918-1925." Exhibition held at the Rare Books and Special Collections Library, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1 May-30 June 2009.