FACULTY & STAFF

Dr. Omar H. Ali

Contact Information

Email: ohali@uncg.edu
Office: Foust 205
Office Phone: 336-334-5538

Education

Ph.D., Columbia University, New York, 2003
B.Sc., London School of Economics and Political Science, 1992

Teaching Experience

Professor of Comparative African Diaspora History, African American & African Diaspora Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2016-present 
Associate Professor of Comparative African Diaspora History, African American & African Diaspora Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010-2016 
Assistant Professor, Towson University, 2004-2010 
Visiting Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University, 2008-2009 
Visiting Fulbright Professor, Universidad Nacional, Bogota, 2006 
Instructor, Columbia University, 2003-2004

Research Interests

The Making of the African Diaspora, Africa in World History, Black Populism in the New South, African resistance to slavery in colonial Latin America, Islam in the Indian Ocean world.

Current Projects

• Africa in South Asia - an edited book-length project bringing together over two dozen historians and anthropologists to look at the influences of East and West Africans in India.
• Race: A World History - a monograph exploring 'race' as a function of power cross-culturally and over the course of world history.

Courses Taught

• AFS and HIS 356: The Making of the African Diaspora - Examines the formation of the African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic worlds drawing on historical records and ethnographic accounts.
• AFS 554: Black Populism in the New South - Examines the rise and fall of the independent black political movement in the South following the collapse of Reconstruction and before the consolidation of Jim Crow.

Recent Publications

• Malik Ambar: Power and Slavery across the Indian Ocean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)
• Islam in the Indian Ocean World: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, MA: Bedford St. Martin's Press, 2016)
• "Benkos Biohó: African Maroon Leadership in New Granada" in Atlantic Biographies, Mark Meuwese and Jeffrey Fortin, eds. (Boston, MA: Brill, 2014)
• "Lenora Branch Fulani: Challenging the Rules of the Game" in African Americans and the Presidency: The Road to the White House, Bruce Glasrud and Cary D. Wintz, eds. (New York: Routledge, 2010)
• "The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World," Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (The New York Public Library, 2011)
• Other publications listed on Vitae.

Selected Honors and Awards

• North Carolina Professor of the Year, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, Washington, D.C. (2016)
• Teaching Excellence Award, The College of Arts & Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2014)
• Research Travel Grant, Kohler Fund, International Programs Center, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2011)
• Fulbright Research and Lecture Award, Council for International Exchange of Scholars (2006)
• Research Travel Grant, Institute for Southern Studies, University of South Carolina, Columbia (2006)

Links of Interest

• TEDx talk "What's in a Name?: Islam, History, and Identity"
• Comparative African Diaspora History
• Interview on "Voices and Viewpoints," NPR
• CNN interviews Omar Ali on independent voters
• Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, "The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World" exhibit
• Faculty Page on African American & African Diaspora Studies web site

Curriculum Vitae