CCCW Director wins African Studies Association award
Jesse Zink’s research on Christianity in South Sudan wins recognition
CCCW Director Jesse Zink has been awarded the Audrey Richards Prize by the African Studies Association of the UK for his PhD thesis: “Christianity and Catastrophe: Sudan’s Civil Wars and Religious Change among the Dinka.” The prize recognizes the best doctoral dissertation in African studies examined in the UK in 2014 or 2015.
Dr. Zink completed his dissertation in the Faculty of Divinity at Cambridge University in 2015 under the supervision of Prof. David Maxwell (pictured), who himself won the Audrey Richards Prize in 1996. The dissertation is a study of the grassroots Christian movement that emerged among the Dinka people of southern Sudan during civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. It is based on Dr. Zink’s fieldwork, interviews, and archival research in South Sudan.
In addition to his work at the CCCW, Dr. Zink is an affiliated lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity where he contributes to undergraduate and graduate teaching on world Christianity. He is also working on revising his dissertation for publication as a monograph.