Matthew S. Hopper

Matthew HopperProfessor

Fields

  • World History
  • African History 
  • Modern Middle East

Contact Information

Education

  • Ph.D. History, UCLA (2006)
  • M.A. African Studies, UCLA (2000)
  • M.A. History, Temple (1998)

Research Interests

I am a historian of Africa and the Indian Ocean.  My general research interests include world history and the history of East Africa, eastern Arabia and the Gulf in the 19th and 20th centuries.  Specifically, my research focuses on the history of the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean and the comparative history of slavery and abolition.  My book, Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (Yale University Press, 2015) explores the history of the African diaspora in eastern Arabia. My new book project explores the comparative history of liberated Africans in the Western Indian Ocean. 

Visiting Fellowships

  • Smuts Visiting Research Fellowship in Commonwealth Studies, University of Cambridge (2016)
  • Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, School of Historical Study Member (Fall 2015)
  • Postdoctoral Fellowship, Gilder Lehrman Center, Yale University (2009)

Books

  • Slaves of One Master: Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015). ISBN 9780300192018

        Finalist for the 2016 Frederick Douglass Book Prize.

        Reviewed in: American Historical Review, Itinerario, Arab Studies Journal, African Studies Review, Journal of World History, Middle East Media & Book Reviews, Agricultural History.

  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Current Book Project: "Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World."

Chapters in Books

  • “Freedom Without Equality: Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” in Richard Anderson and Henry Lovejoy (eds.), Liberated Africans and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1807-1896 (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, in press).  ISBN 9781580469692 
  • “Enslaved Africans and the Globalization of Arabian Gulf Pearling,” in Pedro Machado, Joseph Christensen, and Steve Mullins (eds.), Pearls, People, and Power: Pearling and the Indian Ocean World (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2019).  ISBN 9780821424025 
  • “Was Nineteenth-Century Eastern Arabia a Slave Society?” in Catherine M. Cameron and Noel Lenski (eds.), What is a Slave Society? The Practice of Slavery in Global Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 313-336.  ISBN 9781107144897 
  • “Africans and the Gulf: Between Diaspora and Cosmopolitanism,” in Allen Fromherz (ed.), The Gulf in World History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), 139-159.  ISBN 9781474430654 
  • “Cyclones, Drought, and Slavery: Environment and Enslavement in the Western Indian Ocean, 1870s-1920s,” in Greg E. Bankoff and Joseph Christensen (eds.), Natural Hazards and Peoples in the Indian Ocean World (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016), 255-282.  ISBN 9781349948574 
  • “Diasporic Routes: African Passages to the Gulf,” in Dale F. Eickelman and Rogaia M. Abusharaf (eds.), Africa and the Gulf Region: Blurred Boundaries and Shifting Ties (Gulf Research Center Book Series) (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2015), 41-54. ISBN 9783940924704  
  • “Slavery, Family Life, and the African Diaspora in the Arabian Gulf, 1880-1940,” in Gwyn Campbell (ed.), Sex, Power, and Slavery (Ohio University Press, 2014).  ISBN 9780821420973 
  • “The African Presence in Eastern Arabia,” in Lawrence Potter (ed.), The Gulf in Modern Times: People, Ports, and History (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2014). ISBN 9781137485762  
  • “The Globalization of Dried Fruit: Transformation of the Eastern Arabian Economy, 1860s-1920s,” in James L. Gelvin and Nile Green (eds.), Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print (University of California Press, 2014), 158-182. ISBN 9780520275027 
  • “‘Slaves of One Master’: Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” in Robert Harms, Bernard K. Freamon, and David W. Blight (eds.), Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013). ISBN: 9780300163872  
  • “Debt and Slavery among Arabian Gulf Pearl Divers,” in Gwyn Campbell and Alessandro Stanziani (eds.), Bonded Labour and Debt in the Indian Ocean World (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013), 103-118. ISBN 9781848933781  
  • “Slave Trade: The Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia,” in Peter N. Stearns (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Modern World, Vol. 7 (Oxford University Press, 2008), 32-35. ISBN: 9780195176322  
  • “Jackie Robinson” in Gary L. Anderson and Kathryn G. Herr (eds.), Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice (Sage, 2007). ISBN: 9781412918121  

 

Journal Articles

  • “Redefining African Regions for Linking Open-Source Data,” co-authored with Henry B. Lovejoy, Paul E. Lovejoy, Walter Hawthorne, Edward A. Alpers, and Mariana Candido, History in Africa 46 (2019): 5-36.
  • “Speaking for Themselves? Understanding African Freed Slave Testimonies from the Western Indian Ocean,1850s-1930s,” co-authored with Edward A. Alpers, Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies 1 (2017): 1-36.
  • “East Africa and the End of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade,” Journal of African Development 13, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 27-54.
  • “Globalization and the Economics of African Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” Journal of African Development 12, no. 1 (Spring 2010): 125-146.
  • “Parler en son nom? Comprendre les témoignages d’esclaves africains originaires de l’océan Indien (1850-1930)” [“Speaking for Themselves? Understanding African Freed Slave Testimonies from the Western Indian Ocean,1850-1930”], co-authored with Edward A. Alpers.  Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 63, no. 3 (juillet-août 2008): 799-828.
  • “Imperialism and the Dilemma of Slavery in Eastern Arabia and the Gulf, 1873-1939,” Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction 30, no. 3 (2006): 76-94.

 

Works in Progress

  •  “Tracing Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” in Daryle Williams, Walter Hawthorne, and Dean Rehberger (eds.), Encoding Enslaved.org: Slavery, Databases, and Digital Histories (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, under consideration).

 

Book Reviews

  • “Review of Fahad Ahmad Bishara, A Sea of Debt: Law and Economic Life in the Western Indian Ocean, 1780-1950,” Arab Studies Journal 27 (Spring 2019): 172-176.
  • “Review of Padraic X. Scanlan, Freedom’s Debtors: British Antislavery in Sierra Leone in the Age of Revolution,” Journal of British Studies 57, no. 4 (2018): 874–75.
  • “Review of Richard B. Allen, European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500-1850,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 49, no. 1 (2016): 164-166. 
  • “Review of Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno, eds., Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 45, no. 3 (2012): 459-460.
  • “Review of Yacoub Yusuf Al-Hijji, Kuwait and the Sea: A Brief Social and Economic History,” The Mariner's Mirror: The International Journal of the Society for Nautical Research 98, no. 1 (Feb. 2012): 123-124.
  • “Review of Jonathan Miran, Red Sea Citizens: Cosmopolitan Society and Cultural Change in Massawa,” African Studies Review 54, no. 2 (September 2011), 203-204.
  • “Review of Shihan de Silva Jayasuria, African Identity in Asia: Cultural Effects of Forced Migration,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 42, no. 2 (2009): 341-342.
  • “Review of Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost; A Story of Greed Terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa,” Ufahamu 25, no. 3 (Fall, 1997): 110-115.

 

Conference Presentations

  • “Reconsidering the ‘South-east Africa and Indian Ocean Islands’ regional grouping in the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database,” presentation to 62nd Annual Meeting, African Studies Association, Boston, MA, November 22, 2018.
  • “Fugitive Slaves and the Royal Navy in the Indian Ocean World,” presentation to 61st Annual Meeting, African Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, November 30, 2018.
  • “Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” presentation to Liberated Africans and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Harriet Tubman Institute, York University, Toronto, Canada, June 10-12, 2017.
  • “Freedom Without Equality: Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” presentation to 59th Annual Meeting, African Studies Association, Washington, DC, December 1-3, 2016.
  • “Enslaved Africans and the Globalization of Indian Ocean Pearling,” presentation to 7th IMEHA International Congress of Maritime History, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, July 1, 2016.
  • “Africans and the Gulf: Between Diaspora and Cosmopolitanism,” presentation to Global Gulf Workshop, NYU Abu Dhabi, May 8-10, 2016.
  • “Tensions of Diaspora and Cosmopolitanism in the Arabian Gulf,” presentation to Cosmopolitan Currents in the Indian Ocean, NYU Abu Dhabi, March 15-17, 2015.
  • “African Slavery in Arabia in the Anti-Slavery Era, 1840-1940,” presentation to Southern Labor Studies Association Biennial Conference, George Washington University, March 7-8, 2015.
  • “Diasporic Routes: African Passages to the Gulf,” presentation to 5th Annual Gulf Research Meeting, University of Cambridge, August 25-28, 2014.
  • “Was Nineteenth-Century Eastern Arabia a Slave Society?” presentation to What Is a Slave Society? An International Conference on the Nature of Slavery as a Global Historical Phenomenon, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, September 27-28, 2013.
  • “Pearls, Globalization, and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” presentation to Sea Stories: Maritime Landscapes, Cultures and Histories, University of Sydney, Australia, June 12-14, 2013.
  • “Enslaved Africans in the Pre-Oil Gulf Economy,” presentation to Pre-Occupations in the UAE: The Work-A-Day World Before Oil, NYU Abu Dhabi, May 13-14, 2013.
  • “Globalization and the African Diaspora in the Arabian Gulf in the Age of Empire,” presentation to Migration and Sociopolitical Mobility in Africa and the African Diasporas: International Conference Honoring Edward A. Alpers, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, April 11-12, 2013.
  • “Globalization, Trade, and Labor in Nineteenth-Century Muscat and Basra,” presentation to Gulf Studies Symposium, Gulf Cities: Space, Society, Culture, American University of Kuwait, March 22-24, 2013.
  • “Diaspora, Empire, and Belonging: Enslaved Africans and Identity in Arabia,” presented to Languages of Citizenship in Translation: Conversations in Africa and across the Indian Ocean, University of Cambridge (UK), March 16-17, 2012.
  • “Slavery and Memory in Oman and the United Arab Emirates,” presented to panel “Memory, History, and Forgetting in the Arab Gulf,” 45th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, Washington, DC, December 4, 2011.
  • “American Merchants, Globalization, and Labor in the Western Indian Ocean, 1840-1890,” presented to panel “U.S. Businesses in the Making and Unmaking of African Sovereignties,” 54th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Washington, DC, November 19, 2011.
  • “Cyclones, Drought, and Slavery: Environment and Enslavement in Oman, 1873-1927” presentation to Enslavement, Bondage and the Environment in the Indian Ocean World, Indian Ocean World Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, April 28-30, 2011.
  • “The Limits of Freedom: British Manumission Policy in the Gulf, 1907-1949” presentation to panel “Legal Spaces and Social Networks: Relocating the Gulf in the Age of Empire” 44th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, San Diego, CA, November 18-21, 2010.
  • “Globalization, Slavery and East African Poverty in the Longue Durée” presentation to Understanding African Poverty over the Longue Durée, conference by the Harvard University Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in partnership with the International Institute for the Advanced Study of Cultures, Institutions and Economic Enterprise, Accra, Ghana, July 15-17, 2010.
  • “East Africa and the End of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade,” presentation to Africa and the Indian Ocean, NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, Abu Dhabi, UAE, March 14-16, 2010.
  • “The Globalization of Dried Fruit: Transformation of the Eastern Arabian Economy, 1860s-1920s” presentation to Circuits and Networks: Muslim Interactions in the First Age of Globalization, UCLA Center for India and South Asia, Los Angeles, CA, February 25-26, 2010.
  • “Pearls, Globalization, and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” presentation on panel “New Research in the Global History of Pearl Diving,” American Historical Association 124th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, January 9, 2010.
  • “Debt and Slavery Among Arabian Gulf Pearl Divers,” presentation to Debt and Slavery: The History of a Process of Enslavement, Indian Ocean World Center, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, May 7-9, 2009.
  • “Africans in the Arabian Gulf,” presentation to The Gulf in Modern Times: People, Ports and History, Dr. Sultan Al-Qassimi Centre for Gulf Studies, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (co-sponsored by Columbia University, Gulf/2000 Project, American University of Sharjah), March 17-19, 2009.
  • “The African Presence in Eastern Arabia: Globalization and Diaspora in the Age of Empire,” presentation to Africa & The Gulf: The Africa-Arab Gulf Relationships, New York University Africa House, NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, and Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research International Conference, Abu Dhabi, March 3-4, 2009.
  • “‘Slaves of One Master’:  Globalization and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” presentation to Slavery and the Slave Trades in the Indian Ocean and Arab Worlds: Global Connections and Disconnections, Gilder Lehrman Center’s 10th Annual International Conference, Yale University, November 7-8, 2008.
  • “Ambiguous Freedom: Antislavery and Paradoxes of Liberation in the Western Indian Ocean,” presentation to Liberated Africans as Human Legacy of Abolition: An International Workshop to Mark the Bicentennial of British and American Abolitions of the Slave Trade, University of California, Berkeley, CA, May 1, 2008.
  • “Speaking for Themselves? Understanding Freed Slave Testimonies from 19th-Century Eastern Africa,” co-authored with Edward A. Alpers, presentation to 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Washington, DC, January 3-6, 2008.
  • “The Nineteenth-Century Slave Trade from East Africa to Arabia Reconsidered,” Presented to 50th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, New York, NY, October 18, 2007.
  • “Slavery, Family Life, and the African Diaspora in the Arabian Gulf, 1880-1940,” Presented to International Conference on Sex, Power and Slavery: The Dynamics of Carnal Relations Under Enslavement, Indian Ocean World Centre (IOWC), McGill University, Montreal, Canada, April, 19-21 2007.
  • “British Antislavery and Ambiguities of Arab and African Identity in the Western Indian Ocean,” Presented to 49th Annual African Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, November 18, 2006.
  • “Slavery, Hegemony, and Resistance in the Arabian Gulf in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Presented to 120th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Philadelphia, PA, January 8, 2006.
  •  “The African Diaspora in Southeast Arabia,” Presented to The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean, Spellman College, Atlanta, GA, April 8, 2004.
  • “African Labor and the Arabian Gulf Pearl Diving Industry, 1873-1948,” Presented to 46th Annual African Studies Association Meeting, Boston, October 31, 2003.
  • “Globalization, DNA, and Ethnicity: Genetic Genealogy and the Future of Diaspora Studies” Presented to Globalicities: A Conference on Issues Related to Globalization, Michigan State University, October 19, 2001.
  • “Sex and Race in Apartheid South Africa: The Implementation and Enforcement of the Anti-Miscegenation Law of 1950,” Presented to 42nd Annual African Studies Association Meeting, Philadelphia, November 1999.
  • “Educating Syrian Women: The American Junior College for Women in Beirut, 1921-36,” Presented at 3rd Annual James A. Barnes History Conference, Temple University, February 1998.

 

Invited Talks

  • “Globalization and Slavery in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” NYU Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, Kevorkian Summer Institute for Teachers, NYU, New York, August 8, 2018.
  • “Slavery and Globalization in Arabia,” in conversation with Eve M. Troutt Powell, The Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery, Schomburg Center, New York Public Library, New York, March 30, 2017.
  • “Race and the Legacy of Slavery in the Gulf,” NYU Abu Dhabi, March 8, 2018.
  • “Freedom Without Equality: Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” 2016 Smuts Memorial Fund Lecture, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, May 19, 2016.
  • “Free But Not Equal: Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” University of Kent, Canterbury (UK), March 10, 2016.
  • “Antislavery and Empire: Paradoxes of Liberation in the Western Indian Ocean,” Wolfson College Humanities Society, University of Cambridge, March 1, 2016.
  • “Slaves, Fashion, and Globalization: African Pearl Divers in Eastern Arabia in the Age of Empire,” Princeton University, Near Eastern Studies Program, Brown Bag Lunch Series, November 16, 2015.
  • “Liberated Africans in the Indian Ocean World,” School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, November 2015.
  • “Globalization, Slavery, and the African Diaspora in Arabia in the Age of Empire,” invited lecture to Gilder Lehrman Center Annual Lecture Series, Yale University, December 9, 2009.
  •  “Slaves, Dates, and Pearls: The African Diaspora in the Arabian Gulf and the World Economy, 1860-1925,” Presented to African History Seminar, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, May 18, 2005.
  •  “The Life of Pearls: Economic and Cultural Aspects of the Pearl and Mother-of-Pearl Trade in Oman and the Arabian Gulf, 1820-1944,” Presented to Oman Historical Association, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman, May 27, 2002.

 

 

Awards and Fellowships

  • Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Stipend, London (Summer 2019)
  • Cal Poly Research Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant, London (Summer 2018)
  • Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts Circle of Giving Faculty Scholarship Grant (Summer 2017)
  • Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts Summer Research Stipend, Mauritius (Summer 2016)
  • Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts Early Career Award for Achievement in Scholarship (2014)
  • Cal Poly College of Liberal Arts Circle of Giving Faculty Scholarship Grant (Summer 2014)
  • Cal Poly Research Scholarly and Creative Activities Grant, Geneva, Switzerland (Summer 2014)
  • Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Book Fellowship (2007-08)
  • UCLA Charles E. Young Award (2006)
  • UCLA Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies, Clark Library Fellowship (2005)
  • SSRC International Dissertation Fellowship, Zanzibar, Oman, UK (2004-05)
  • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, UK (2004-05)
  • SSRC International Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, Yemen, Oman (2001-02)
  • American Institute for Yemeni Studies Fellow, Sana’a, Yemen (2001)
  • Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division, Junior Fellow (1997)

 

Organizational Memberships

  • African Studies Association
  • American Historical Association
  • Middle East Studies Association

 

Courses

  • HIST 210 - World History I
  • HIST 221 - World History, Beginnings to 1000 CE 
  • HIST 222 - World History, 1000-1800 
  • HIST 223 - World History, 1800 to Present
  • HIST 304 - Historiography: History & Theory 
  • HIST 308 - Transatlantic Slave Trade
  • HIST 428 - The Indian Ocean
  • HIST 429 - Pre-colonial African History 
  • HIST 444 - Topics in African History: East Africa Since 1800 
  • HIST 460 - Senior Project 
  • HIST 504 - Introduction to Graduate Study 
  • HIST 510 - Graduate Seminar in World History 
  • HIST 512 - Supervised Reading for Comprehensive Exams 
  • HIST 599 – M.A. Thesis

 

 

Back to top

Related Content

Back to Top