Jonathon L. Earle

Jonathon L. Earle is an Associate Professor of African History at Centre College, where he has been a faculty member since 2012. He serves as Co-Chair of the Uganda Studies Group within the African Studies Association and as Senior Editor of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. His academic appointments span the History Department, International Studies Program, and African & African American Studies program.

Dr. Earle specializes in the intellectual history of modern Africa, with particular expertise in Uganda and the Buganda Kingdom. His research focuses on decolonizing knowledge production, religious thought in colonial contexts, and political imagination during the end of empire. He has developed a creative pedagogy incorporating community-based learning and regularly leads study abroad programs to eastern Africa and the United Kingdom.

His scholarly output demonstrates significant contributions to African intellectual history, with particular emphasis on how African thinkers navigated colonial epistemologies. His publications reveal a consistent exploration of how religious frameworks, historical consciousness, and political imagination shaped anti-colonial thought and postcolonial state formation in East Africa.

• Finalist for the Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize (2018)
• Centre Scholar (2016, 2019)
• Stodghill Research Professorship (2017)
• Delta Delta Delta Professor of the Year (2016)
• Special Project Award of the Kentucky Historical Society (2020)

Dr. Earle has maintained an active research agenda, presenting at or organizing at least 16 conferences or workshops since 2013, including events at Cambridge, Makerere, Yale, and Oxford universities. He has also supervised undergraduate research projects, notably a student-led podcast series on the assassination of Kentucky Governor William Goebel. His work with students extends to field research in Uganda and the United Kingdom, reflecting his commitment to experiential learning.

His scholarly leadership includes co-organizing significant workshops such as 'Terrorism in Africa' at Oxford (2016) and 'Emerging Approaches in Uganda Studies' at University College London (2017). He is currently leading major editorial projects including the Cambridge History of African Political Thought and African Histories of the Holocaust.